The Hammer of Boghnar
by Xeratos
Summary: Three adventurers might just save the world, if their own pasts don't get them first. One is a gnome in a world where her race has been gone for centuries, and she has no idea why. Another is a sorcerer with no memories, but who has a secret that could raze the world to its foundations. The last is a spy who feels his world crumbling as a shadowy god-figure manipulates his life.
1. Chapter 1

_Notice: This work is not stolen, it's from my website, Alabaster Ink. I'm simply copying it here in hopes that it'll receive some love. So if you happen to have seen this on my personal site, that's why._

It was the sound of singing that first drew the creatures in. It came, clear and calling, across the stream, luring them away from their shadowed camp in the trees. There were six of them, scrawny and spindly things. Their skin ranged from a pasty yellow to pale green, and their teeth were sharp and crooked. Beady black eyes peered out from tangled mats of greasy hair. Each of them stood only about four feet in height, and carried crude weapons made from wood and sharpened bone.

The goblins were cowardly creatures by nature, but when they saw the singer, they immediately began fanning out to encircle their unwary prey. The singer herself was an unusual person. Standing only three feet in height and being slender of frame, she had sweeping dark hair hanging pulled back from her face and was dressed in a sturdy leather traveler's outfit. Threads of steel were sown into it, making it into a kind of light armor, and a sword sized for her hand sat nearby her.

The singer was sitting on a rock bathed in the afternoon sunlight, enjoying a lunch of wayfarer's bread and cheese, complimented by water from the stream in a tin cup. It was meager fare, but that didn't seem to dampen the singer's spirit. She continued her song blissfully unaware of the goblins circling around her, creeping slowly closer to their intended prey.

The singer reached down to the rock, her hand closing on the neck of a mandolin, and began strumming on the instrument in accompaniment to her singing. The goblins crouched quietly in the long grass around them. As one, they leapt up to ambush the small woman.

"Look out!" the call echoed across the hills as a party of four men rushed towards the singer's rescue. The warning had been unnecessary; the singer smoothly sidestepped a goblin's clumsy attempt to grab her and kicked the creature's legs out from under it. Still singing and picking at the strings of her mandolin, she slid to the right as another goblin reached for her.

The men closed the distance quickly and lit into the goblins with a fury. Only one stayed back, and his hands flashed through the intricate signs and weavings of magic as he forced his voice to utter the syllables to summon forth his art. Streaks of light burst forth from his hand, striking one of the creatures in quick succession, lifting it off the ground with every one.

The singer hopped off the rock, and was quickly engaged by two of the goblins. She flitted first one way, then the other, easily evading the clumsy swings made by the ugly creatures. One of the three men that had rushed into combat jumped between the woman and the two creatures, thrusting ahead with a short sword and blocking their attacks on a hard wooden buckler strapped to his other arm.

Seeing that her would-be rescuers had everything well in hand, the singer sat back down on her rock and continued to play her mandolin. The melee was swift and brutal, but ended quickly with four of the goblins down and dying, the other two fled as the men reached for bows and drew beads on their backs. A set of shafts sped through the air, one finding its mark in the center of a fleeing goblin's back. The other went wide and clipped the second creature's shoulder, spurring it on to even greater speeds.

The men all turned to the singer, but only one stepped forward. "Greetings. My name is Daedric," he said with a small, formal bow. "May I know my lady's name?"

Daedric was solidly built, of only average height but with an athletic, muscular frame. He wore the clothes of a nobleman, and carried himself with the bearing of one. A light cloak hung about his shoulders, probably more as a decoration than for actual warmth.

The woman stopped singing and smiled up at Daedric. "Me? Oh, my name is Seraphina. It's very nice to meet you," the replied, sticking a hand out at Daedric for him to shake. Daedric took the hand uncertainly, and Seraphina pumped her arm up and down vigorously.

"I'm Feran," another of the men said. He looked a lot like Daedric, though obviously a good deal younger. It was easily apparent that the two shared a close relation. The other melee fighter introduced himself as Balv, but said little beyond that.

The man who'd cast the magic out of his hands at the goblins approached the gathering. He was tall and thin, and his clothes were eccentric and impractical, but it all seemed to fall together to make a striking impression. His hair, pitch black and cropped close, spiked out from his head, and he wore a disarming grin splayed across his face.

"Larsik," he said by way of introduction.

"Hi, Larsik," Seraphina said, still smiling. Her smile began to slip though, as Larsik stared at her, longer and longer. The small woman was beginning to feel uncomfortable when Feran slapped Larsik across the back.

"Good show with the magical backup," he laughed.

"Yeah," Larsik agreed, pulling his eyes away from Seraphina. Inwardly, she sighed. Like everyone else she'd met, the man didn't know what to make of her. She wasn't a halfling, though she was certainly small enough to be one. Larsik was learned enough to know this, but he wasn't sure what she was then.

"I'm a gnome," Seraphina said to the unspoken question. Larsik half turned, but shook his head and looked away. Daedric wore a puzzled look on his face, while Feran was unaware that anything unusual had happened. Balv simply stood there, occasionally surveying the area around them.

"Well, Seraphina the gnome," Daedric said finally, "you can see that these roads aren't so safe to travel right now. How would you like an escort back to town?" The nobleman extended a hand towards the gnome to help her up from her seat.

"Hmm," Seraphina murmured, her chin in her hand, "Well, what town are you talking about?"

"Garrin, of course. What other towns are there around here?" Daedric replied.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm a traveler, and I'm not really familiar with this area."

"Ah. I understand," Daedric nodded. "Then Garrin is definitely the place to go. It's the center of the whole region, where my father's keep is."

"Well in that case then, I'd be delighted to go with you," Seraphina said with a laugh.

The unusual traveler walked with the men from Garrin for some time, chatting easily with Feran and Larsik. Daedric occasionally chimed in, but for the most part, spent his time watching around them, a frown on his lips and deep creases in his forehead. Balv, for his part, said nothing, and in fact rarely walked with the others.

Seraphina was showing Feran how to play the mandolin, and laughing with Larsik as the younger nobleman produced horrible warbling sounds from it, when Balv jogged up to Daedric and murmured something in a low voice. Immediately, the nobleman's face went dark. He snapped out, "Feran, be silent."

Feran fell quiet instantly, recognizing both his brother's tone and his face. Trouble brewed, he knew. His hand eagerly grasped the hilt of the sword strapped to his waist. Larsik fell quiet as well, and looked more thoughtful than troubled or eager. Seraphina continued on with an easy smile, watching the world around her with wide eyes.

Daedric motioned them all closer towards him. "More goblins," he announced grimly. "Maybe as many as a dozen, holed up nearby in a shallow cave. We need to wipe them out, quick and hard." He turned to Seraphina, then continued, "I'm sorry, but we have to do this. If you continue straight ahead on the road, you should reach Garrin within an hour. Well," he amended with a smile as he looked at her legs, "maybe an hour and a half."

"No, no, that's ok," Seraphina said. "I'll go with you, if you don't mind. I do know how to use this thing, actually." She patted her own sword, then looked around at her new companions as if daring anyone to disagree with her.

No one did, and, with a nod, Daedric motioned everyone to follow Balv. The grim man led them silently off the road and into the brush. They traveled for about five minutes, before Balv held up a hand before them. The party came to a halt, and Balv parted the brush quietly for them to see the cave entrance. Daedric nudged Larsik and gestured first to him, then the cave.

Larsik nodded, then scrounged around on the ground for a second before coming up with a rock. Quietly muttering, he stared at the rock for a few seconds as light began to pour forth from it. He cupped it in his hands, shielding the light, then, with a nod from Daedric, threw it into the cave.

Both of the noblemen and their silent companion charged into the cave, with Seraphina hot on their heels and Larsik bringing up the rear. By the time he walked under the stone roof of the opening, pitched combat had already begun. Several goblins lay dead on the floor as others battled the three humans and single gnome. More goblins poured forth from a secondary room behind the first, these ones armed with crude clubs, spears, and in one case a sword.

True to her word, Seraphina leaped into the fight, whipping her blade about to hack into a goblin, then slipping under its arm and lunging at another behind it. The second goblin caught up her blade with its club, pushing the sword high and shoulder checking her. Seraphina rolled with it and tripped the goblin up as she went down, kicking it over top of her and rolling back to her feet in the same motion.

Beside her, Daedric darted between three goblins, keeping each on the defensive and blocking their assaults with his shield. He had sliced into each of them several times, but had yet to score a definitive hit. Suddenly, bolts of light twined around him and struck two of the goblins, stunning them and allowing Daedric to slit the third open from belly to groin.

Larsik stood in the back, watching the battle with a keen eye and unleashing bolts of magic where he felt it would be most beneficial. He watched Balv do battle with the sword wielding goblin, and, once the goblin had shown that it could be a formidable opponent, launched into another spell, summoning a giant beetle into existence.

His concentration focused on his spell, he missed the goblin Feran was fighting go down. He didn't see the second goblin behind it leap forward and impale the young nobleman's throat with its spear. He didn't know anything like that was happening until he heard Daedric scream his brother's name.

"Feran!" the cry cut through the cavern as Daedric went mad. He hurled his shield into the face of a goblin, then took a two handed grip on his sword and scythed his way through them to his brother. No longer bothering with finesse, he blasted through the spindly creatures' defenses with sheer brutality. It was a matter of seconds to see him across the cave, a trail of seven bodies left behind him.

Daedric reaches his brother, cleaved the goblin's head with his sword, then fell to his knees to check Feran for signs of life. There were some, a flickering pulse, but the life blood pumped from the younger nobleman's neck, thick and steady, then slowed to a trickle.

"No!" Daedric howled as he rose in a rage. He charged forward, heedless of the crude bone axe wielded by a nearby goblin. Blood splattered on the cave floor, but onward Daedric rushed.

He punched through the goblins near him, lashing out at any who got too close. Seraphina squeaked as his sword cut by, barely missing her, and wisely dropped back. Between Daedric and Balv, the rest of the goblins were soon routed, and the enraged nobleman chased them down relentlessly. Seraphina approached Feran, checked him, and found him already faded away.

"That's a shame," she said, pulling her mandolin off her back. She strummed a quiet, somber melody, one that Larsik had never heard before. He stood silently by while she played a song of lament for the fallen man.

Daedric returned several minutes later. He stopped at the cave entrance and listened to the woman play, then approached when the song had finished.

"Your end shouldn't have come this way," he muttered to his brother's body.


	2. Chapter 2

Seraphina remained in the town of Garrin for several days at Daedric's request. The night of Faren's funeral, he called both her and Larsik to his chambers in his father's keep. They were shown in by the ever silent Balv, and found Daedric himself sitting behind a large writing desk.

He looked up as they entered, and laid down a quill pen he'd been using. "Thank you both for coming," he said as he rose from his chair.

"Sure," Seraphina responded lightly. She frowned to herself, trying to remember that the man she was talking to had just lost a brother, and to not sound so cheerful.

"What do you need?" Larsik asked.

"The goblins have been getting worse for some time," Daedric told them. "We've done our best to keep the roads safe, but it's gotten out of hand. Worse, we've received messages from other areas that things are just as bad elsewhere. Marauding goblins are apparently the least of it.

"I want to know why. If possible, I want it stopped. No matter how many we kill, more of the little monsters show up. We need it to stop, and my father's in no condition to do anything right now. It's fallen on me to keep everything running here, so I need someone else to go in my stead."

"And that would be us?" Larsik asked, exchanging a glance with Seraphina.

"And that would be you," Daedric confirmed. "And one other. There is a man in Garrin. His name is Raifex. His skills are... invaluable in the right circumstances. I'm told he's a man whose loyalties can be bought for the right price. I have some men working on finding him as we speak."

"What kind of skills are we talking about?" Seraphina asked with some confusion.

"To put it simply, he's a spy and a thief. He excels at gathering information and being in places he doesn't belong. He's supposed to be very intelligent, and I suppose he must be to be in a business like that," Daedric explained.

"How do you plan on getting someone like that to even hear out your proposal?" Larsik questioned.

Raifex crouched in the shadows, hidden from sight by a large bureau. The flickering light of the torch was between him and the other people in the room, further shielding him from detection. He listened to the conversation with interest, stifled a laugh when they started talking about him specifically.

Word had gotten around quickly that the region's nobility was looking for him. Usually, that meant one thing in his line of work, but this time it was about a possible job. The nobility were nothing if not rich, and working for them tended to pay well. Rather than allow the meeting to be held on Daedric's terms, he'd decided to come on his own.

Sneaking into the keep hadn't been the easiest job he'd ever done, but it was far from the hardest. The guards were adequately trained, but the garrison was undermanned. The walls were rough granite blocks, and not at all smoothly fitted together. Scaling them and gaining access to Daedric's rooms hadn't been difficult. He'd come in through the window and easily found a secure spot to spy on the young nobleman.

He was more curious about the woman who'd come in than anything. He'd never seen anything like her. She was short, like a halfling, but didn't look like any he'd ever met. From the way she was dressed, she was obviously a traveler, and the mandolin on her back suggested her profession as bard.

Bards had their uses, but by and large, they were too flashy and drew too much attention to themselves for his tastes. He'd heard all of Daedric's proposal, and he wasn't thrilled with the idea of traveling with one. He settled in to wait for the room to clear out so he could leave undetected, when the sweet sound of profit came to his ears.

"Two hundred gold each," Daedric said. "That's just a start. Another three hundred when you return with an explanation for why the goblins are invading the area."

"That's quite a sum," Larsik whistled appreciatively.

"As we all know, it will be dangerous work. I can't promise your safety. I don't feel it's a price too high for what I'm asking you to do."

"And I suppose I would be happy to do it for that price," Raifex announced as he walked out of the shadowed corner of the room.

Daedric's hand immediately dropped to his sword, and he scowled at the thief. "How did you get in here?" he demanded.

"If I wasn't the best, you wouldn't want to hire me, now would you?" Raifex responded cockily.

Daedric released the hilt of his sword with some effort. "Indeed," he said stiffly. "This isn't how I would have chosen our meeting."

"I know," Raifex grinned. "That's exactly why I forced it this way."

"Well, you've heard my offer then," Daedric said. "Will you do it?"

"Three hundred up front, another three on my return, and an extra hundred for traveling expenses," Raifex returned.

Daedric bristled. "That's ridiculous!"

"You want the best, you have to pay for it," Raifex shrugged. "And if you're doubting that I'm worth the money, consider where we're standing, and who was invited and who wasn't."

The nobleman's mouth was locked into a sour grimace, but he gave a short, terse nod. "Fine," he said. He turned to Seraphina and Larsik. "It wouldn't be fair to only pay him that amount, so I'll increase all of your fees as well. The hundred for traveling expenses, a preposterous amount, will be split between the three of you."

Larsik nodded. "A more than agreeable arrangement. You're very generous."

"Come with me and I'll see that your payment is taken from the treasury," Daedric said as he gestured towards the door.

"Have the other two bring it with them when they meet me at the north end of town tomorrow morning," Raifex told him as he walked over to the window. "And try not to be late."

The thief tipped himself backwards out the window, and with a cry of surprise, Seraphina ran over to it. She stood on her toes and grasped the window ledge with her hands to look out, but Raifex was nowhere to be seen.

"He sure makes a flashy exit," the bard remarked thoughtfully.

"Perhaps a bit of magic about that one," Larsik commented.

Daedric shook his head. "No, I don't think so. He really is as good as they say. And a price gouging profiteer too."

Outside the window, clinging to the stone wall above it, Raifex grinned to himself as he heard the sound of Daedric's door opening and closing. He peeked his head into the window and took in the room quickly to be certain it was empty, the slipped back in.

"Now what are you really up to?" he asked quietly as he approached Daedric's desk.

Balv knocked on Daedric's door early the next morning. He waited several moments before entering. The nobleman was busy at work at his desk again. "They've left on the north road," the soldier reported.

"Good. As soon as I receive word that all three of them have reached Narrow Dale, we'll begin," Daedric said.

"It was a clever move, getting Raifex out of the area," Balv congratulated.

"More of a bonus than anything," Daedric replied. "We'll be open with our intentions soon enough, there's nothing he could really gain from spying on the keep. Getting Larsik out of here was my primary concern. Having an actual job for him to do just sweetens the deal."

"Ah," Balv muttered. He looked out the window towards the road leading north. "Because of his problem?"

"Precisely. The last time one of the seals fractured, it nearly unraveled everything. We can't risk it happening again."

Their conversation was interrupted by another knock at the door. A servant poked his head in with a set of papers "Pardon, sir, but there are several matters that need your attention."

Daedric sighed in irritation. He crossed the room in a few quick strides and took the papers. "Very well," he said. "I'll be down momentarily."

The servant left, and the nobleman turned back to the soldier. "Things were much easier when my father was dealing with the mundane affairs of ruling."

"Perhaps an advisor of some sort to help lighten the load?" Balv suggested.

"No, I must maintain appearances. I shouldn't have anything else to do with my time than this, and it's important no one realizes it."

Daedric gestured to Balv to follow him. "By the way," he said, "Raifex lived up to his reputation. He not only managed to sneak into my rooms, but came back again after I left to rifle through my desk."


	3. Chapter 3

They traveled north out of Garrin for several days. Seraphina and Larsik chatted easily about places they'd been and seen, though for Larsik it was a considerably shorter list. Rather, the list of places he could remember was short. He had almost no memories of anything before a year earlier, a fact which Seraphina found strange and Raifex noted silently to investigate earlier.

By the end of their first day of travel, the ground had a definite slope to it. By the time they made camp on the second night, there was no argument that they were in mountainous territory. The ground was rocky and hard, and grass scraggly and sparse, and shade was becoming increasingly difficult to find.

It was on their third day that disaster struck. They were in a narrow, winding canyon that more or less went north with a strong eastern bend. It was well traveled, used by both travelers and merchants with pack mules to get goods in and out of the Telistal Mountains. It was too narrow in places for actual wagons, so it saw primarily foot traffic.

They had broke for mid day lunch. Seraphina sat next to the canyon wall under a lip, enjoying what little shade she could get. Larsik sat opposite of her, absently flipping a spark of light back and forth across his fingers as he ate. Raifex had left them, moving farther up the canyon trail to check around a bend.

He came back around suddenly and rushed over to his two companions. "Goblins," he announced. "At least ten, maybe a few more. All armed. There's no way to avoid them, unless either of you thinks you can scale the walls and get to the top of this canyon in the next minute."

Seraphina looked up at the stone. It was easily several hundred feet in height, and there was no way she was getting to the top at all, let alone with a timeframe. "Maybe they'll pass us by," she said hopefully.

Raifex snorted. "Don't be stupid. Goblins are the whole reason we're out here to begin with. Even if they would, we can't let them through."

Larsik looked up at the wall. "You know, there is a spell that would allow us to climb that."

"Great!" Seraphina said. "Can you cast it?"

"No," Larsik shook his head. "I was just thinking out loud."

The gnome scowled at him. "Think a little quieter next time!"

"Sorry," the sorcerer murmured in apology.

"Stop bickering," Raifex snapped. "Goblins. In the next minute or two. We're out numbered at least three to one. We've got surprise on our side, that's about it."

"It's either retreat or advance," Larsik pointed out. "It's a long run back, and we need to be going forward."

"The debate isn't whether or not to run away, it's how to kill them efficiently and with minimal risk to us," Raifex said through gritted teeth.

He hated working with amateurs. Concepts that seemed simple enough had to be spelled out laboriously to them, wasting time and his patience. Still, based on what he'd found in Daedric's office, both what the nobleman had intended for him to find and other, the safest place to be was well away from Garrin. And wilderness travel was always safer in numbers, even if those numbers weren't exactly up to his standards.

"How handy are you with that sword?" he asked Seraphina.

"I can take a goblin in a duel, if that's what you're asking."

He turned back to Larsik. "How accurate are your spells? Can you work on a target engaged in combat with another person?"

"I know just the spell to do it. You won't have to worry about friendly fire."

"Good," Raifex said. "Here's what we're going to do then. Seraphina and I will take either side of the canyon right near the bend. She's going to stand behind that outcropping, I'll be opposite her, and as soon as they start coming around the corner, we're going to hit them hard from either side.

"We won't be able to contain them, and they're going to spill through and start to surround us. Your job it to make sure that doesn't happen. I don't care how you do it, just be careful not to hit us with whatever you use.

"With any luck, this whole thing will be over in less than a minute and the three of us will still be alive."

Raifex and Seraphina moved into position, while Larsik closed his eyes and began quietly chanting the words to a spell. Moments later, a knee high creature shimmered into existence next to him. At the same time, a goblin rounded the corner and gave a shout of surprise. Larsik's summoned creature, an enormous beetle, scurried forward.

Raifex snorted with annoyance as he saw Larsik's creation charging in. It would be of only minor help, and even then, not for very long. If that was the best the sorcerer had to offer, he'd be of no help at all. The thief lined his blade up for a strike and slashed the goblin's throat before it could warn its fellows.

Two more goblins came running around the bend, then stopped and backpedaled in surprise. They managed to shout out to their fellows, then hefted their weapons. The one closest to Seraphina had a rust pitted mace, and Raifex faced one with a simple wooden club.

The gnome struck first, her sword flashing by the goblin's defenses to score a solid hit against its torso. It cried out in pain and pushed forward, hoping to win with its size. It was easily several inches taller, but Seraphina was the more skilled, and she stopped its advance with a series of stabs. The fight ended with her sword buried several inches into the monster's chest.

Raifex deflected a simple swipe from his opponent's club, then retaliated with a slash of his own weapon. The goblin managed to bat the sword aside, but Raifex simply lifted his foot and kicked the creature in the knee. It staggered off balance, but before he could finish it, another one came around the corner and attacked.

Larsik's summoned beetle launched itself through the air and latched onto the wounded goblin, tearing at its arm. The goblin cried out in pain and alarm and dropped its club as it tried to pry the bug off. Raifex wanted to finish it then, but the new goblin was surprisingly adept with the short spear it carried.

The goblin kept its distance. It held Raifex back with short, defensive stabs as it called out for reinforcements. The thief finally slipped inside its range and grabbed the haft of the spear with his free hand. He hacked with his sword, and the goblin was forced to backpedal. It tugged its weapon free, then tried to club Raifex with its length.

Larsik completed a second spell, and arcing streams of light struck the goblin still engaged in combat with his summoned beetle. It shuddered with each blast, and toppled over dead. The beetle scurried forward to find a new target, but faded away before it could reach the next goblin.

Seraphina closed in on the spear wielding goblin, and neatly carved out its lung while it was tied up with Raifex. Half a dozen more were just around the corner though, and as one, they charged at the gnome.

She retreated from the approaching swarm, and Raifex swept out to the side. Two goblins veered off to attack him, but the other four continued to chase after Seraphina. She fought defensively as she backpedaled, but they spread out around her and quickly had her surrounded.

Larsik's magic struck again, this time spread between two goblins. Seraphina took advantage of their momentary distraction to rush another of the four. Before its companions could jump her, she buried it under several brutal cuts. It fell back, bleeding and clutching at its stomach. A long, horizontal slice across his abdomen gushed blood, and the goblin was doing all it could to hold everything in place.

Her reckless attack left her vulnerable though, and before she could reset her defenses, the other goblins were on her. She took two strikes, blocked a third, and managed to hold her ground. Her armor, a fine shirt of chain mail, deflected one of the two attacks that had landed, but she winced in pain as a spearhead sliced across her arm.

Raifex twisted and dodged as the two goblins in front of him alternated attacks with their hatchets. He nicked one's hand, sending the weapon flying away, then spun in place to face the other as it raised its own hatchet for an overhead chop. Raifex ended the attack before it could begin with a swift kick to its belly.

The goblins were just the right height for such an attack, which was probably why it worked so well. He was confident that he could win against the two spindly creatures. That confidence was shaken when another pair joined the fray. "Damn it, Larsik," he swore. "Do something! This is exactly what I needed you to prevent."

The sorcerer completed another spell, this one causing a sheet of flames to burst from his hands and scorch two of the goblin's attacking Seraphina. She flinched from the heat that washed over her, but was far enough away that it didn't harm her.

Even with Larsik's support, there were still six goblins alive and hostile, and they outnumbered their opponents two to one. Larsik was tiring, and Seraphina had been injured several times already. Individually, the monsters were easy enough to defeat, but their numbers had made them overwhelming.

They needed a strong offensive push, the gnome realized. Much like what Daedric had done in the cave when his brother had fallen, they needed to spook the cowardly creatures and take their hearts out of the fight. Goblins weren't fierce fighters, they were bullies. If she could cow them, they'd fold and scatter, making them much easier to defeat.

She knew just what she needed to do.


	4. Chapter 4

Seraphina took a step back away from the goblin and started singing. She pitched it low, and it reverberated against the stone walls, filling the canyon with its echoes. A moment later, a towering figure easily three times her own height stood next to her. Every inch of its body was covered in spiked metal plates. The armor was unrelieved black, and in its hands it held a wickedly ridged two handed mace.

The goblins took one look at it, then bolted in the other direction. The figure stood there menacingly, but didn't chase after them. Seraphina turned towards the goblins facing Raifex, and the armored giant glided that way. Its feet left the ground and it ghosted towards the monsters. Raifex himself caught sight out of it out of the corner of his eye. With a yelp, he dove to the side.

The goblins turned and scattered, heedless of anything else around them. Seraphina managed to pick off one of the fleeing creatures as it darted by, and Larsik's next spell caught another. The rest turned the corner and ran as fast as their feet could carry them.

Raifex picked himself up off the ground and examined the armored giant carefully. He reached out with one hand and dipped his fingers through it. "An illusion," he remarked thoughtfully. "Very detailed. I'm glad someone's magic in this group was useful."

"Shove it," Larsik snapped.

"Don't start bickering," the gnome interjected tiredly as she let the illusion fade away. "Unless this canyon opens up, we're still going to have to deal with the ones that ran off."

"We should go after them while they're still scared stupid. I don't want them coming back on us in the night and setting us up for an ambush," Raifex said.

Seraphina looked around the corner. The canyon ran more or less straight for a few hundred feet before bending again, but already the goblins had disappeared. They'd either found a hiding spot somewhere, or they'd ran out of sight. "I don't think we're going to catch them," she reported, shaking her head.

"We'll just have to be extra careful," Larsik commented.

Raifex's lips tightened, but he didn't say anything. It was the look of a man who knew he was right, but was equally certain he'd be unable to convince his companions of that fact. Even if nothing came of it, and they reached Narrow Dale without incident, the thief still wouldn't be pleased with the situation.

They continued on, Raifex walking farther ahead. He was on edge, waiting for an ambush. Larsik and Seraphina walked much more calmly behind him, still chatting. Their discussion had turned to magic, and Seraphina confessed to having some slight abilities in the art.

"But how did you craft such a detailed illusion so quickly?" the sorcerer asked.

"I don't know," she shrugged. "It just came to me."

"Was it modeled after someone you knew?" he pressed.

The gnome frowned as she considered the question. "Maybe," she replied.

"You are a very mysterious person," Larsik commented. "A gnome, you said. Gnomes are fairy tales, not real. So what are you really?"

She scowled up at him, slightly offended. "If I say that I am a gnome, then that's what I am," she snapped at him.

Larsik held his hands out apologetically. "Sorry," he mumbled. "It's just… gnomes aren't real, Seraphina."

She prodded him with her finger. "Does that feel real to you?" she said. "Can you hear my voice? Or are you just going crazy?"

"Already is," Raifex muttered to himself from up ahead. "And he's got about as interesting a past as you do."

They traveled in silence after that, with Raifex taking the lead and keeping a sharp eye out for goblin ambushes. Seraphina stomped along, a scowl painted across her face, and Larsik looked alternately bemused, annoyed, and apologetic. An uneasy tension was settling in between the three of them, and there was little trust lost.

As they settled in for the night, Larsik spoke the first words he'd said since the encounter with the goblins in the canyon. "I'm sorry if I insulted you earlier," he told Seraphina.

She crossed her arms and regarded him. "Well, you did. Gnomes are very real. Is this part of the world really that backwater?"

Larsik's brow furrowed, but before he could answer, Raifex's laugh caught their attention. The thief stood there, shaking his head and laughing. "You're an idiot," he told Seraphina.

She bristled, but before she could retort, he continued. "You claim to have traveled for years now. Have you ever seen another gnome? I'm not saying that you're not one. Honestly, I have no idea what you are. I've never seen anything like you. But I'm betting you haven't either."

"That's ridiculous," Seraphina blustered. "Of course I've…"

She trailed off thoughtfully as she considered the sentence she'd been about to finish. "I mean, we're not common or anything, but I had to have seen one at some point in time. I'm sure of it."

"You think on that a bit more," Raifex told her. "Let me know what you come up with."

Larsik shot him a glare. "You're a prick."

"I'm not arguing. But the simple fact is that gnomes, if they were ever real, have been extinct as a race for a long, long time. I don't know what delusions she's under, and honestly, I don't care. She can call herself whatever she wants, as long as she understands that walking around claiming to be a gnome is going to get her disbelieving looks and attitudes."

Seraphina sat down heavily on a log that they'd dragged into their campsite. She'd been traveling, supporting herself with her music, for years, as long as she could remember. What she'd done before that was very hazy and indistinct, but she remembered she'd come from an entire city of gnomes. She couldn't even begin to guess what had happened in the intervening years, but it didn't seem possible to her that her entire race had died out.

Even if some catastrophe had befallen the city, surely people would still remember it. From the way her new companions talked though, gnomes had been regulated to myth and fairy tales. Maybe it was just too far away for them to know about it. Strange though, she couldn't even remember its name.

Larsik sat down next to her. "Don't worry about it," he told the gnome. "I'm sure it'll come to you, and if not, well, living with no memory isn't terrible. Everything's new and exciting again, right?"

"Don't you wonder who you used to be, if you have friends and family somewhere? You could be married, for all you know," Seraphina pointed out.

Larsik shrugged. "I suppose it's possible. I just don't know. Maybe I'll find out someday, and I guess I'd like those memories back, but living in the present isn't the worst way to go through life."

"I've been doing that for too long already," she muttered to herself. "How many years have I just been wandering, not thinking about anything at all?"

The sorcerer turned to the fire pit stacked in the center of the camp and chanted for several seconds. Fire burst from his finger tips and lit the pile of wood ablaze. With a relaxed stretch, he settled down into place on the ground, using the log as a back rest. "Like I said, we'll figure it out. And if not, it's still not the worst thing in the world."

Seraphina just shook her head and stared moodily at the flames. For some reason she couldn't quite explain, she suddenly felt as if she'd forgotten something important.

Raifex stood at the edge of the camp, staring out into the night. Absently, he grasped the hilt of a dagger sheathed on a leg strap. He silently considered his options as he stood watch. Larsik was almost too dangerous to be left alive, but the risks of killing him outweighed the risks of leaving him alone. The safest thing to do would be to abandon the whole mission, take what money he had already gotten, and hope to the gods of darkness that he'd never run across the cursed man again.

Not that he was much of a worshipper. He relied on himself, first, only, and always. But a little God-inspired luck couldn't hurt. For some reason, he felt that leaving would be the wrong choice. It wasn't the money, he knew. That was a decent amount, but not enough to entice him into the risks he was taking.

He could end a lot of problems with a bare three long strides and a quick stab into the sorcerer's throat. He gripped the dagger's hilt tighter, even started to take the first step. With a snarl, he spun away and hurled the blade into a nearby tree.

"Stupid," he spat out. "I'm losing control."

With a glance over his shoulder to make sure both of his companions were still sleeping, he jerked the dagger back out of the tree and sheathed it. "I shouldn't even be here," he muttered under his breath.


	5. Chapter 5

The town of Narrow Dale was nestled in the mountains, cupped between two outstretching ridges of rock. Numerous paths existed going up and down either side, and though the town itself looked small, there was probably just about as much space inside the cave networks in the ridges as there was above ground.

The buildings were made of wood with clay tiles, and they sat crunched together on either side of a wide road. Above ground space was at a premium, as the community's mostly human inhabitants didn't fancy living in caves, so there was very little room between structures. Other than the single main road splitting the town in half, the side streets were so small that nothing but foot traffic could be accommodated.

Seraphina stood at the edge of town, looking down the road at Narrow Dale. It rose as it approached the first buildings, then flattened out as it went. "This is the place?" she asked as much as stated.

"Narrow Dale is where Daedric said we should go first," Larsik responded.

"Why here?"

"It's a gateway into the interior of the mountains," Raifex explained absently as he surveyed what he could see of the town. "From here, we can go almost any direction."

"How will we know which way to go though?" she pressed.

"There's supposed to be a man here, an associate of our generous employer, who can steer us down the right path."

"Oh. Well, let's go then," the bard said as she started up the road.

"Can't argue with that logic," Larsik told Raifex.

"No, I suppose not," the thief responded.

They walked down the main road, ignoring the looks Seraphina was getting from some of the locals. The people living in Narrow Dale were a hardy stock, tall and rugged. They made their livings as miners and fur trappers, quarrymen and traders, and were accustomed to dealing with bitter cold winters and dizzying heights.

None of them had seen anything like the gnome walking through their town though, and she got more than a few gawks. They reached Narrow Dale's only inn, the Quarryman's Stock, and entered the building. Inside, a plain faced man, a bit on the portly side, stood behind a bar. It was getting towards lunch, and the floor was just starting to fill up.

Raifex approached the innkeeper and leaned forward on the counter. "Are you Malduke?" he asked quietly.

"Might be," the man replied. "You the three out of Garrin?"

"That's us," Raifex confirmed. "We were told to look for you when we got here."

"Right, got a message for you. Came in on carrier bird the other day. Hold on a second while I go get it for you."

Malduke disappeared into his back room, and Raifex joined Larsik and Seraphina at an empty table in the center of the room. He looked around, counted ten people in the room. Mostly they looked like locals, tall and muscular from working with the stone. On the far end, a single man sat alone at a table. The man ignored them completely in favor of staring down into the mug on the table in front of him.

Raifex hadn't gotten to the top of his profession by being careless though. He had already sized the man up, noted the weapons partially hidden by his cloak and the table, and that it if came to it, the other patron would be on his feet in less than a second. In short, he was a man who wasn't going to be caught by surprise, and his casual appearance was nothing but an act.

"There is a message for us," the thief informed his companions as he turned his attention back to them. "We'll see what that has to say as soon as the innkeeper brings it out."

"I wonder who would be sending us messages," Seraphina said.

"I think we can narrow it down to people who knew where we're going," Raifex commented dryly. "Likely Daedric or one of his underlings."

Malduke returned a minute later with a small finger's width roll of paper. "Here you are," he told them. "Anything I can get you to eat or drink while you're here?"

"Blackroot Ale," Raifex said. "What's on the menu for food today?"

"Vegetable stew and mutton right now, and I've got a pig roasting for tonight's dinner."

"Three stews it is," Raifex said to the nods of his companions.

"Do you have any silver sparkle wine?" Seraphina asked.

Malduke laughed and shook his head. "Far too expensive for the tastes of the people around here, even when you can convince the elves to sell some. I do have a cask of boggle berry in the back though."

"I'll have a glass of that then," the bard replied.

"And for you?" Malduke asked Larsik.

"Cinderstone cider, if you have it."

"Bit early for that, I think," the innkeeper said with a chuckle, "but it's your money, so if that's what you want."

Malduke rattled off prices, and swept their coins off the table practically before they'd hit the wood. He threaded through the room, stopping only once to talk to one of the quarrymen sitting near the bar. He nodded to something the man said, then walked through the door into his kitchen.

Raifex unrolled the note and squinted down at it. The writing was miniscule, and it took him several long seconds to decipher it and start reading. "Goblins only first wave. Orcs plaguing trading routes, reports of ogre sightings. Hurry investigation. Daedric," he read quietly to the rest of the group.

"Well, wasn't that enlightening," the thief said sarcastically as he rolled the paper back up. "Too bad he didn't think to include any useful information."

"It does tell us something we didn't already know," Larsik pointed out. "Whatever's going on, it's not just about the goblins. Orc and ogre sightings near Garrin means that it's more widespread than that."

"And how is that information useful to us right now?"

"I don't know," Larsik wilted under Raifex's baleful glare. "I was just saying…"

"It could become useful to us later," Seraphina interjected, "and it gives us something to look into now that we're here."

A young girl approached their table then carrying a tray with their meals. She passed them out, then said, "Father said he'd be right out with your drinks."

"Thanks," Larsik said as he grabbed a bowl of stew and started shoveling it in.

Seraphina raised an eyebrow. "Not even going to wait for the steam to blow off?" she asked.

"Nah," the sorcerer replied. "The hotter, the better."

Raifex scowled across the table, but wiped the expression away before either of them could notice. He wasn't sure if it was a bad sign or just a coincidence that Larsik liked his food at a mouth blisteringly hot temperature. Once again he tried to rationalize his decision to stay with the group, and once again couldn't come up with a reason. He couldn't figure out what it was that kept him traveling with the man day after day.

A minute later, Malduke returned with their drinks. As he set the wooden cup of cinderstone cider down, smoke rolling off the rim, Larsik reached out for it. "Careful now," the innkeeper said. "I just pulled it out a few moments ago."

Cinderstone cider got its name from the way it was prepared. The cup, always made of a special hard wood, was capped and buried in small stones heated in fire. The cider itself was magically pressed, and was strong enough that a cup could knock an ogre over. It was heated until the cup began to smoke, then allowed to cool just enough to drink.

Larsik scooped the cup up, ignored the flash of heat that shot up his fingers, and threw back half the cup. Malduke's eyes widened as he watched the sorcerer do that. "By the Lord of Roads," he exclaimed. "Are you ok?"

"Sure," Larsik grinned. "I prefer it that way."

Raifex lifted his own mug and took a swallow to mask his face. It definitely wasn't a coincidence. The hot stew could have just been a quirk, but there was no way a human could handle a drink like that with the smoke still on it. Larsik should have been choking and screaming as the cider burned him from the inside out.

The worst thing was that the idiot himself didn't seem to realize he'd done anything out of the ordinary. Raifex wondered how much he'd really forgotten about his own life, or if he was an incredible actor playing the long game. Almost without realizing it, he felt his hand clench on the hilt of his dagger.

He released it and turned in his seat towards the innkeeper. "What can you tell us about orcs?" he asked.

"Smell bad, ugly, and stupid," Malduke replied promptly.

Seraphina and Larsik laughed, but Raifex just rolled his eyes. "I meant specifically around this area. Have you been seeing a lot more of them than usual recently?"

"Ask Kazir," Malduke told him, nodding towards the lone man across the room. The man noticed the gesture and hunched deeper into his cloak. "Don't mind the surliness. He's like that with everyone. He's a ranger who specializes in hunting down orcs. If there're any problems to be had with them, he's always in the thick of it."

"Seems look a good place to start," Seraphina remarked.

"Sure," Larsik agreed as he reached for a leg of mutton. "After we eat."


	6. Chapter 6

When they'd finished eating, Raifex pushed his chair back from the table and stood. He glanced uncertainly at where Kazir still sat in the corner of the room. "Might as well get it over with," he muttered to himself.

Larsik and Seraphina remained seated as they watched the thief thread his way through the tables towards the sullen looking ranger. He took a seat opposite the man, ignoring the dangerous look thrown his way.

"Kazir, the orc hunter?" Raifex asked.

"Yeah. What's it to you?"

"Seen any around here recently?"

"Maybe," the ranger hedged. "Why?"

"My companions and I have been contracted to find out why goblins, and now orcs, have been descending from the mountains in droves and plaguing human lands to the south. Malduke told us to talk to you about orcs in the area," Raifex explained.

"Sure, there's orcs here. There's always orcs around, though the dwarves usually do too good a job at keeping them away. Makes it hard for a freelancer like me to earn any of the bounty on orc ears. And now you want in on it? You'd best turn around and leave."

Raifex waved a hand negligently in the air. "I don't want to collect ears. I've already been well paid for my services. I simply need to know what's going on. I want to talk to them and find out why they're migrating south, preferably before you start hacking off facial appendages."

Kazir sat there and mulled that over for a bit. "So," he began, "if I'm understanding you right, what you want from me is to take you to some orcs so you can question them? You're not interested in the bounty, so any orcs killed along the way would be mine to claim. Are you any good in a fight?"

"My companions and I were attacked by a band of a dozen goblins on our way north. We killed more than half and sent the rest running," Raifex told him.

"Orcs aren't goblins. They're bigger, tougher, and meaner. Still, an extra three sets of hands might be useful," Kazir replied.

"So we have a deal then?"

Kazir considered the thief carefully. "Well, my partner is extremely late, and I've been hesitant to take on this latest group on my own. If you're handy in a fight, and don't want the bounty, I suppose we have a deal."

"Good. When do we leave?" Raifex asked.

"Now's a good a time as any. Get your friends and we'll go."

Raifex stood up and started to walk away. After a single step though, he turned back and looked at the ranger. "By the way, where are we going?"

"Get your friends," Kazir repeated. "I'll fill you in on the way."

They left the town of Narrow Dale through the north road. They traveled several miles before they veered off onto a wide, beaten down wagon trail with ruts several inches deep. Raifex stopped as they stepped onto the trail and peered around. "A mine?" he asked.

"Good guess," Kazir said. "The dwarves of Irinom controlled the mine at the end of this trail until about two months ago. They encountered some trouble closer to home and had to pull their miners back out. The orcs of the Black Talon Clan moved in once the dwarves abandoned it. There are probably about twenty of them, too many for me to take on alone."

"The odds don't seem that much better with four of us instead of one," Larsik pointed out.

"Inside the mine, their numbers won't mean as much if they can only come at us two or three at a time," Raifex pointed out.

"Exactly," Kazir said. "Their chief is a nasty piece of work named Aginor. I've tangled with him before, he's on a whole different level than his minions. If any of them knows what you want to know, it'll be him."

"I don't suppose you brought torches," Raifex commented. "I doubt the orcs are keeping the place brightly lit."

"In my pack," Kazir said tersely as he scanned the area. "Be quiet. I heard something."

The others started listening as well, and after a few moments, Seraphina said, "I don't hear anything."

The ranger glared at her, and she subsided back into silence. A moment later, a distinct cracking could be heard from farther up the trail. Kazir put his hands on his weapons and slowly drew them from their sheathes. He held a long sword in one hand, and a short sword in the other. He looked at Raifex and nodded towards the opposite side of the trail, where a tree thick enough to hide behind was growing. The thief nodded back and swept out of sight.

Kazir quick stepped back to Larsik, and whispered quietly, "Draw them out from their ambush with something magic. I want them fighting here on our terms so we're not dealing with any traps they might have."

Larsik eyed the wagon trail. "I don't see anything," he announced in a hushed voice.

The ranger scowled at him, then dipped his head up the trail. "Just over the crest of the hill, off to the left. You can see one's head. It's lying on its belly, trying to watch us through the grass."

The sorcerer scanned the hill. His eyes lit up and he nodded. "Now?" he asked.

"Yes, now!" Kazir hissed in exasperation. "When else would I want it done?"

Seraphina stood off to the side, her hand on her sword, and watched Larsik began the incantation that would call his magic. A moment later, two sparks of light shot out of his hands and flew through the air to strike the orc in the face. It let out a loud squeal of pain and hopped to its feet.

Immediately, two more orcs burst out of the brush and charged down the trail. Kazir dipped off to the side, and the orc obligingly adjusted course to meet him. It passed by Raifex's tree, and the rogue slipped out behind him and planted his dagger solidly in the creature's back. The orc let out a strangled cry of mixed pain and surprise and toppled forward.

Seraphina intercepted the other orc and hacked at it with her blade. It stopped in surprise when she jumped in front of it, then growled and kicked forward, intent on bowling her over and getting to the caster behind her.

She sunk her sword into its leg as it lashed out, stinging it and forcing its attention fully to her. It had a long, heavy looking curved sword, and it dropped it straight down at the gnome's head. She ducked to the side rather than try to parry, then slashed her opponent's wrist. The orc howled in pain and lost its grip on its weapon.

Two more sparks of light erupted from Larsik's hands to strike the orc he'd hit initially. They lifted it off its feet, throwing it backwards to land flat on its back, quite dead. He immediately started chanting again, and a few moments later, a large, knee high beetle appeared next to him.

"Ugh," Seraphina complained as she saw it. "That thing is worthless."

She spun around the orc's clumsy attempt at a grab and stuck it several more times, finally dropping it with a slash across its throat as it leaned forward. She turned to watch Larsik's summoned minion rush towards the last orc still standing, one which was desperately trying to stay alive as Kazir and Raifex attacked it from either side.

A loud hissing snap came from up the trail, and a half a second later, Larsik cried out in pain as a crossbow bolt slammed into his chest. He staggered backwards and fell awkwardly, clutching at the bolt with his hands. With a strangled cry, he ripped it out and hurled it away. He pushed both hands onto the wound, trying to hold blood in, but it pumped out steadily between his fingers.

Down the trail, an orc was reloading its crossbow. Seraphina glanced down at Larsik, then back to the orc. With a growl, she sprinted forward. The orc, seeing her charge, casually lifted the weapon and pointed it in her direction. She feigned to the left, then smiled grimly as the bolt flew by her. The orc cursed and began pulling on the winch that would reset its weapon.

She was on it before it could get another bolt loaded. It jerked the crossbow around to block her first slash, but couldn't get the awkward weapon in line for the second. She hit it several more times before it collapsed on the ground, bleeding its life out and gasping for air.

She ran back to where Larsik had fallen. Raifex had beaten her there, and was attempting to bandage the wound. He had a frantic look about her face that she found out of character. She wouldn't have thought the thief would care about the wellbeing of anyone else as much as he seemed to.

His efforts weren't particularly fruitful though. Larsik was losing blood fast, and he'd be dead soon if they couldn't do something to stop it. Kazir watched it from the side with casual interest, but made no move to intervene.

"Move aside," the gnome ordered Raifex. "I'll take care of this."


	7. Chapter 7

She started singing, and the music summoned her magic. She placed her hands on Larsik's chest, pushing aside his own, and channeled the magic into him. Healing energies poured forth into the wound, stopping the blood that was gushing out of the wound and binding the skin closed.

Larsik groaned and stirred. He looked down at the spot on his chest where the bolt had pierced him, then back up to Seraphina. "How?" he asked simply.

"Healing is a part of my magic," she said. "Not a big part, but it's there."

"Thank the Gods for that," the sorcerer said fervently.

"Indeed," Raifex muttered to himself off to the side under his breath. He didn't know what would happen if Larsik's body died, but he did know he didn't want to be that close to the corpse when it went. Seraphina had noticed his tension, but she probably thought he was worried about the poor bastard.

Kazir reached down and pulled Larsik to his feet. The sorcerer winced as he rose and rubbed his chest. The wound had closed, but it was still raw and tender. It hurt, but it was nothing he couldn't live with. "I don't think I got paid enough for this job," he announced.

Raifex snorted and shook his head. "I think he might have paid you too much."

"Enough," Kazir cut in. "This isn't the time for this. There could very easily be more orcs coming down the trail. I want these bodies dumped in the brush just in case, and we'll continue on."

He kneeled down next to each corpse and, drawing a knife from his belt, reached down and sawed off the right ears. He patted the orcs down and took a smattering of silver coins as well, all of which went into two separate pouches. When he was done, he dragged the first body off the trail. Raifex grabbed another, and Larsik and Seraphina took a third together.

Kazir rolled the last body away, then they started moving towards the mines again. They reached the entrance without incident, but found it blocked by an overturned wagon tipped on its side. They stopped across the clearing outside the mines and waited while Kazir scouted out the area. He returned after a minute, shaking his head.

"There's nothing out there, at least not nearby. We can move that wagon, but I doubt we'll do it quietly. It could cost us our surprise and give them time to organize their defenses," he said.

"Other than it blocking the natural light, I don't see any reason to move it more than a bit so we can slip into the mines," Larsik said.

"I could probably get in even if we didn't move it," Seraphina remarked thoughtfully. "And I can see well enough in the dark to be able to tell if anything inside the mine notices us."

"That could be risky," Raifex pointed out. "If they come down on you, you might not be able to get back out, and we might not be able to get the wagon moved in time to help you."

"No, it's a good idea. We're severely outnumbered, and I want to know if we've lost the element of surprise," Kazir decided. "Do it, and we'll try to get this wagon moved aside as quickly and quietly as possible."

Seraphina squeezed under a corner and crawled past the wagon, then set her back to it. It was dark in the mine entrance, but she had better night vision than any of her companions, and she could see far enough in to tell that there was nothing nearby. She could hear Kazir and Raifex on the other side, quietly deciding the best way to move the barrier aside.

A moment later, the sound of wood groaning in protest filled the mine as they attempted to drag the overturned wagon far enough to the side to slip past it. It settled back into place after a few seconds, and the muffled sounds of Larsik cursing could be heard through it. She scowled as she peered out into the darkness. The man could make a little less noise.

A body appeared, covering the small opening she'd come in through. Almost all the light in the cave cut out instantly, leaving her basically blind in the darkness. With a stream of silently mouthed curses, she put a hand on her sword. She tried to listen for sounds coming from within the mine, but all she could hear was the three humans on the other side of the wagon struggling to drag it, tip it over, anything to move it.

Whoever was blocking her light moved a moment later, and the whole wagon shifted slightly. She heard the sound of sucking mud grasping at the wagon as it was torn free. It rotated out a foot or so before settling back onto the ground. One after another, her three companions slipped into the mine.

Larsik had a piece of half-rotted wood broken off the wagon in hand, and he enchanted it to glow with light. It was small enough that he could cup it in his hands and cut it out almost completely. Kazir pulled two torches from his pack, their ends wrapped in rags, and gave one to Raifex. "We'll use them if we get separated or his light spell ends before we're finished," the ranger explained.

"I can always cast it again," Larsik put in.

"Fine, in case of emergenies then," Kazir spat. Turning to Seraphina, he asked, "Did anything notice us while we were moving the wagon?"

"Hard to tell," she said, annoyance clear in her voice. "When you guys blocked all the light, I couldn't see anything."

Orcs could see in the dark and needed no light sources, so it was entirely possible that one had seen her and rushed deeper into the mines to alert the rest of its tribe. She didn't think that was too likely though. With her diminutive size, she figured any orc that had seen her would have immediately attacked.

The ranger looked like he wanted to say something, but just frowned and shook his head instead. "Either way, speed is our ally now. We need to strike hard and fast, and keep moving."

He pulled his own weapons, and everyone else did the same. They walked deeper into the mines, each one straining to hear the sound of orcs over their own footsteps. They stopped when they came to the first intersection. Kazir looked every way, but all he could do was shrug and guess at random.

They repeated the scene over several more intersections, and Larsik soon found himself completely lost. They'd walked down tunnels, come into larger open caverns, and everywhere found evidence of an active mining operation only recently shut down. Dwarven tools had been carefully packaged up and stored away, only to have the boxes and crates ripped open by the orcs. In one room, they found the remains of two dwarves that had been brutally slaughtered by the orc tribe, looted, and left to rot.

They didn't meet their first group of orcs in the mine until they came to a long, narrow cavern being used as a bunker. Dozens of beds lined either side, though most had been destroyed, their bedding scavenged for other purposes. A group of orcs sat on boxes and diced across the surface of another one being used as a table on the far side of the room. One looked up as Kazir entered the room, and gave a shout of surprise.

The other four were on their feet, but not before Kazir had closed the distance and slain the closest one with a quick thrust into the creature's face. The blade crunched through the orc's mouth, shattering teeth and practically slicing its jaw off. The orc let out one strangled scream of agony around the steel before it toppled over and Kazir attacked its closest companion.

Seraphina and Raifex ran to catch up to the ranger before the remaining orcs surrounded him, and Larsik's magic beat them both. Twin sparks of light flashed by and struck an orc that was trying to flank Kazir, causing it to cry out in pain and draw the ranger's attention. Before it could finish closing in, he quick stepped to it and gutted it with his short sword.

Two of the orcs had died in seconds, and the other three had only just gotten to their feet to fight, grabbing nearby weapons as they rose. They were buried under Kazir's savage attacks, each one easily slipping past parrying weapons and through seams in the leather armor the orcs wore. Raifex managed to slip around to the side and finish off a single orc, but other than that, the fight was Kazir's to claim.

"Why did you need us again?" Seraphina asked as the ranger bent over and removed an ear from each orc.

"Catching a handful of orcs by surprise isn't the same as being caught between two groups and fending off attacks from every direction in a tunnel," Kazir said.

"I suppose that's true."

"What's that?" Larsik asked, pointing towards a piece of paper pinned to one of the bunks. Seraphina reached over and pulled it free, then held it towards the glowing chunk of wood the sorcerer still carried.

"Well, that's convenient," Raifex grinned as he looked over her shoulder at it.

"Do you think it's accurate?" she asked.

"Should be," the thief replied as he studied it. "It looks too clean to be orc made. I'd say we made a good find."

They grinned at each other as they stared down at the paper, which contained a detailed map of the mine. Being able to find their way around would ease their work load tremendously, and none of them had to be told that the map could very well save their lives if things went badly. Adventurers who relied on luck to see them through had a habit of not living very long, and they weren't planning on dying in an abandoned mine.

"Where are we at on this thing?" Larsik asked as they studied it.

"I'd say about here," Kazir said, pointing towards a dead end passage on the west end of the map. He traced the lines back towards the entrance. "This would be the route we took to get here. Looks like a bit of backtracking and a turn the other way at that last junction should take us deeper in."

"The only real question is where the orcs are hiding in this maze," Raifex said. "This isn't well labeled, but I'd guess they won't be lurking in the tunnels. There are bigger caves towards the back. We should try there."

Seraphina started to speak, but stopped with a surprised squeak as Kazir's hand clamped over her mouth. "Quiet," he hissed.

A moment later, she heard the noise of scraping metal and heavy footsteps thumping down the tunnel outside the bunker. Kazir released her and reached for his weapons. She stuffed the map into her pocket and did the same.

"Here they come," the ranger said, judging the sounds of the approaching orcs.


	8. Chapter 8

It was only three orcs that came around the corner, and they seemed more surprised than anything to see a bunch of humans, and one gnome, in their mine. That didn't stop them for long though, and one brandishing a large, two-handed axe charged forward while its companion pulled a bow off its shoulder and set an arrow. The third orc grunted something too softly to be heard, then turned and ran off out of sight.

Kazir met the orc with the axe mid charge, and he deflected the creature's attack with both blades. The orc was the stronger, and while Kazir managed to push the axe head to the side, it easily pulled him off balance and drove a knee up into his stomach. He hunched for a moment, then came back around, slipping his short sword free of the axe and slashing it across the orc's leg.

The axe wielder hopped back in pain, freeing Kazir's second weapon, but before he could retaliate, he was forced to spin aside to avoid an arrow from the archer. "Do something about that one!" he yelled towards Larsik.

Seraphina scrambled past the fight as she rushed towards the orc with the bow. It was the quicker, and sent another arrow flying. It hit her chest, but didn't penetrate the chainmail she wore. It still hurt though, and she expected to find a bruise there later. The orc got a second shot into the air, but Seraphina was too close at that point and forced the shot wide by stabbing her sword at the orc's hand.

The arrow bounced off the stone ceiling and fell harmlessly to the floor with a clatter. The orc abandoned the bow, pulled its own sword from its belt, and met the gnome head on. She was faster, but it was stronger and had better reach. It was also surprisingly good with its weapon, and they traded blows for several seconds without scoring a hit.

Then Raifex was next to her, and the orc had to work frantically to keep two swords from reaching it. It maintained its defenses for as long as it could, but eventually one slipped through. As soon as the first attack landed, the orc spun away and sprinted down the tunnel into the darkness, abandoning its companion.

Kazir worked the axe wielding orc up and down, forcing it to burn up its strength with its heavier weapon parrying attack after attack. The orc countered by stepping out of the range of most of Kazir's swipes and making great sweeping slashes with its axe. The ranger darted back and forth, and eventually slipped in behind a swipe to land two solid hits on the orc.

The first was repelled by the creature's armor, but the second slash scored a long line of blood across its face. The orc howled and released its axe with one hand, then grabbed hold of Kazir's cloak and dragged him in for a headbutt. The ranger tipped his own head down just in time to avoid having his face splattered, and both of them staggered backwards from the impact.

Larsik watched the fight intently, but didn't make a move to help. His magical strength was waning, and he suspected he'd need what he had left for more powerful adversaries later on. He unstrapped the light crossbow he carried from his hip, but didn't fire it. He wasn't a great shot, and he was worried that he'd do more harm than good if he fired into melee.

Kazir came out of the daze first and immediately tore the orc's throat out with one of his swords. The creature's axe tumbled to the floor as it clutched at the throat wound, then it toppled backwards when Kazir kicked it in the stomach. The ranger looked around for the other orc, but by then, the cowardly archer had already vanished.

Seraphina ran down the tunnel after it, but she simply didn't have the stride length of the orc, and it pulled away quickly. It might have escaped completely, but Raifex scooped up its bow and the arrow that had went wide. He lined up the shot and sunk the arrow into the orc's back just before it turned a bend. It went down with a surprised cry, and Seraphina caught it a few seconds later.

Before it could stand or bring its own blade around, she leaped onto its back and drove her heel down into the arrow wound. The orc screamed and thrashed, but she brought her sword down in a two-handed overhead chop, splitting its skull and silencing it. She wiped the gore off on the creature's clothes, then jogged back to where Raifex was talking to Kazir.

"One of them ran off. I'd say we've lost surprise and it's all about speed now," the thief reported.

"You should have stopped it!" the ranger growled at him.

"We were busy," Raifex said defensively. "I didn't see you chasing after it either."

"This was the entire reason I brought you along," Kazir spat out. "If you can't do your job, then you're worthless to me."

Raifex's hand clenched around his dagger, and Kazir's eyes narrowed as he saw the move. With a smirk, he gave the thief a look daring him to pull the weapon. Raifex's mouth tightened into an angry line, but he didn't rise to the bait.

"We don't have time for this now," Larsik broke in. "I don't have much magic left in me, and by my count, at least half of the orcs are still alive. Killing each other here isn't going to help anybody but them."

"We'll settle it later then," Kazir said.

"Count on it," Raifex muttered, still eyeing him angrily.

Seraphina shook her head as she watched them fight. No matter how many times she witnessed it, humans constantly amazed her with their inability to not fight each other. Even the easy going ones got riled far too easily. She remembered her own reaction to Larsik telling her that gnomes weren't real, and grimaced. She'd obviously spent too much time with the quarrelsome race.

She pulled the map out of her pocket and held it up to Larsik's light. "I think it went here," she said as she pointed towards a large cavern at the back of the mine. "At least, that was the direction it was heading when it disappeared. I guess it could have turned somewhere else along the way."

"It's as good a place to start as any," Kazir agreed. "I just don't like the idea of walking into an ambush."

"That was always a risk," Raifex said. "And we knew that they'd discover us soon enough anyway. This doesn't change anything."

"Keep your weapons out. I don't want any runners if you can stop it," the ranger ordered. "Let's move before more show up here."

Raifex's eyes promised murder, but he held his temper as Kazir marched away. They followed him down the tunnels, stopping occasionally to consult the map. It had proved to be accurate as far as they'd explored, and they had no reason to doubt the rest of it.

Their lack of the ability to see in the dark cost them. When they did run into another group of orcs, they were forced to scramble for cover as several arrows sailed out of the darkness towards them.

They took shelter behind a pile of overturned boxes of mining equipment. Kazir growled and cursed as he pulled an arrow out of his arm and peaked over the edge of the box he was crouched behind. "They're too far out. Throw the light towards them," he commanded Larsik.

The sorcerer exchanged a look with Raifex, then shrugged and chucked the piece of wood over the boxes towards the hidden archers. Seraphina looked out from between two boxes at the light and tried to count how many of the orcs there were.

"I think there are only two, maybe three," she reported.

"It's a good eighty feet to them," Raifex reasoned. "Even three archers could cut us down if we charged that."

"It's not like we can just sit here all day," Kazir said. "The longer we're here, the more likely it'll be we get ambushed from behind."

"Give me the map," Raifex told Seraphina. She handed it over, and he scanned it quickly before giving it back. "Wait here. You'll know when it's time to move."

"What are you-" Kazir started to say. "Damn it, come back here."

Raifex was already gone though. The ranger swore several more times, then looked over the box again. In the shadows at the edge of the light, several orcs could be seen moving, and occasionally, an arrow made a thunk as it lodged in the wooden boxes.

"Maybe there's something in here that could be useful," Larsik suggested, patting the box that he was crouched behind.

"By all means, abandon your cover and go rooting around inside," Kazir said scathingly. "If nothing else, I'll use your imminent demise as a distraction to get closer to them."

"I think you might be even more of a prick than Raifex is," Larsik told him.

Kazir reached out and grabbed Larsik's shoulder, then yanked him forward. Larsik yelped in surprise as the ranger shoved him out into the open. "Be a good distraction for me," he told Larsik, then darted out the other side. Larsik scrambled back towards the cover of the boxes as arrows bounced off the stone around him.

Seraphina watched it all, wide-eyed, and when Larsik made it back under cover, he glared over her head towards where Kazir had disappeared. "If he doesn't die out there, I swear I'll kill him myself," he muttered as he tried to locate the ranger over the box.


	9. Chapter 9

Kazir was halfway to the orcs when he realized that the arrows had stopped completely. They were calling to each other in their own language, which he understood, but too quietly for him to make out. A cry went up from one as it toppled over, and its two fellows swung towards it. A moment later, another one shouted, and this time Raifex came into view.

The orc struggled to hold a sword away from its face, and rather than press the attack, the crafty thief slipped his dagger in under the creature's guard and gutted it. The third orc raised its bow to attack, but by then, Kazir was there. He sliced it apart before it had time to react to him, then reached down and sawed off its ear.

He dropped the gruesome trophy into a bag and moved towards the other two orcs. Larsik and Seraphina walked over to Raifex, the sorcerer stopping to scoop up his light source as he went. Kazir patted down the orc quickly, then took its ear. He wasn't really looking for anything, he just wanted an excuse to pause for a moment while he listened to the hushed conversation of his new companions. He smiled grimly to himself at what he heard.

"The man tried to use me as a distraction," Larsik snarled. "Shoved me right out into the open so he could sneak off the other way."

"Seems to have worked, and you're fine," Raifex told him.

"That's not really the point," Seraphina put in. "We obviously can't trust him. He's more than willing to sacrifice us for his own agenda. Partnering with him at all was a bad idea."

"It got us to here," the thief argued. "I don't like him either, but I don't have to like him to work with him. We'll clean out these orcs, bag their chief, and get some answers. Then we'll never have to see him again."

The ranger approached them. He stopped short and hacked off the last ear for his bounty bag, then straightened back up. "Grab one of these bows if you can use it," he ordered. "If we get into a situation like this again, I want to be able to fire back."

Raifex shouldered a bow, but Larsik just shook his head and patted the crossbow strapped to his hip. Seraphina regarded the bows dubiously, then laughed. "They're as tall as I am," she said. "I don't even think my arms are long enough to draw the string back."

Kazir stared at her blankly. With a sigh of suppressed annoyance, he grabbed a the half full quiver off the dead orc at his feet and moved the arrows into the one he'd taken off the first corpse he'd looted. "Good enough, we can come back for anything else they've got on them later."

They trooped off into the tunnels again, stopping frequently to consult with the map. As they explored deeper and deeper into the mines, they talked quietly. Kazir glared at them, but they ignored the ranger's scowl.

"So you ran blind through the tunnels to flank them?" Larsik said to Raifex.

"Yes."

"What if you'd ran into an orc while you were circling, or gotten lost?"

"Then I'd have lit the torch."

"Oh, that makes sense," Larsik remarked.

Raifex rolled his eyes and squinted into the darkness behind them. "I can't decide if something's been following us or if it's the echoes confusing me," he said.

Kazir pulled up short to listen. With a frown, he shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think so."

He looked around, and spotted an intersecting tunnel up ahead. He grabbed Seraphina's sleeve and said to her, "Wait around the corner. We're going straight on a hundred feet. If something's back there, it won't see you until it's too late."

"What if I can't kill it in the dark?" the gnome protested.

"Then I suggest you run really fast and make a lot of noise so we know to come back and save you."

"No, I don't think so. I've noticed that a lot of your plans involve personal risk to us, but not to you. Why don't you hang around back here and we'll go ahead."

Kazir's mouth tightened. "Because I can't see in the dark as well as you, and you're smaller, and thus, easier to overlook, idiot."

Seraphina planted her hands on her hips. "I don't care. You're not leaving me alone in an underground tunnel full of orcs."

"It doesn't matter now, either way," Raifex interjected before the argument could escalate. "They're here."

Two orcs came charging out of the darkness, each wielding a sword and a shield. Kazir drew his own weapons as he leaped forward to meet them, but Raifex struck first with his stolen bow. The orc he targeted deflected the arrow with its shield, but it also inadvertently gave Kazir a visual barrier that allowed the ranger to score two solid strikes against it and sent its sword spinning across the ground.

The other orc slid around to flank the ranger, but found Seraphina in its way. She struck low, using the difference in their height to force the orc to stoop down. It met her blows with its shield, then slashed down with its sword. She skipped to the side, but it turned the blade and chased her with it, forcing her to parry the attack.

Its strength was too much, and she was pushed backwards and down to one knee. Before it could come back in with another attack, Larsik shot it with his crossbow. The bolt thudded into the orc's chest, stinging it and causing it to howl in rage. It kicked at Seraphina and sent her sprawling as it ran down the tunnel towards the sorcerer.

Raifex put another arrow in the air, and this one took the orc in the face. Its charge came to a dead halt as it rolled backwards to land back to the floor. Seraphina was on it a moment later, her blade stabbing down into its throat.

Kazir finished the orc he was fighting at about the same time, and spun back towards the party and the orc that had slid by him. He unslung the bow from his shoulder and set an arrow into it. It leaped from the string towards a third orc that had slunk up, unseen, behind Larsik. The sorcerer cried out in shock and surprise as the arrow sped towards him, then practically dropped to his knees with relief when he realized the ranger's true target.

"Light the tunnel," Kazir cried out. Raifex snatched the chunk of wood from where Larsik had dropped it nearby and hurled it away from him into the darkness. It landed with a plunk, revealing an open cavern farther in. The glint of coins reflected off the light, and a shadowy figure materialized out of the darkness.

It was a large orc dressed in full plate and carrying a thick two handed sword almost five feet in length over its shoulder. It scooped up the chunk of wood and crushed it in its armored fist, scattering the light into little motes. Kazir had already struck up his torch though, and Raifex lit his own off the first.

They advanced down the tunnel together towards the cavern. Larsik took a copper coin from his own pouches and enchanted it to shed light as he'd done with the piece of wood, then handed it off to Seraphina.

"Darkness won't help that creature," he said to her as he similarly enchanted a second coin.

They entered the chamber, and light flooded across it as they threw their torches and coins to each of the corners. A large sum of money, everything from copper to silver to gold, was piled up against one wall, and near it was a wooden rack of equipment. It was too finely crafted to have been made by the orcs, and was probably loot taken from the dwarves then the orcs had gained control of the mine. Past that, a rough hewn wooden bed frame with a straw mattress and a table with a half eaten meal sat pushed against the far wall

Standing in the center of the room was the largest orc any of them but Kazir had ever seen. Easily six and a half feet in height and broad shouldered, the creature appeared unconcerned at facing four to one odds. A long, thin scar ran down one side of its face near its right ear, and a jagged, broken ended tusk protruded from out of its lower lip.

"Aginor," Kazir spat out.

"Orcs' Bane," the orc surprisingly returned in gruff common. "As always, you live up to your title."

"That's a surprise," Larsik said as his eyebrows rose at the orc's choice of language and diction. "I didn't know orcs came that smart."

"Too damn smart for his own good," Kazir explained, hefting his blades. "I've been hunting him for years now. Every time I think I've got him, he gets away."

"Gets away?" Aginor echoed with a laugh. "I've sent you running repeatedly, and the only difference this time is you're not getting away from me again."

"I won't miss your ear this time," Kazir promised as he eyed the scar on Aginor's face.

"I'll take your own from your lifeless corpse," the orc cried out and rushed forward.


	10. Chapter 10

The clash of steel echoed down the tunnels as Kazir and Aginor met. Raifex started in to help them, but Seraphina grabbed his arm. "More orcs coming in," she pointed down the tunnel. Barely visible at the edge of the flickering torch light, at least three orcs were coming towards them.

"Damn," Raifex swore. He loosed an arrow down the tunnel, then all three of them scrambled aside as two were returned. Larsik poked his head around the corner, then started a quiet chant. An orc leaped into view just in time to catch a sheet of fire from the sorcerer's outstretched fingers. It squealed in agony and thrashed for a moment before Raifex put an arrow in it.

The orc toppled over dead, but its fiery demise didn't stop its companions from charging past it. Another orc hopped the corpse and slammed into Seraphina with both feet, sending her sprawling across the stone floor. Raifex intercepted it before it could pursue her.

Larsik started casting again, and when he was done, two sparks of light shot down the tunnel towards the archers. Orc curses came to his ear, but his smile at the sound was a grim one. He had one, maybe two, spells left him and he was done. After that, it would be on his companions to carry the day.

Raifex and Seraphina ganged up on the orc that had come charging in, and by the time its two companions joined it, it was already on the ground, bleeding and gasping out its last breaths. Each held a short sword, and they both advanced on Larsik. The dual pair of scorch marks on their chests told him exactly why he'd become the object of their ire.

Across the room, Kazir and Aginor battled. Where the ranger was finesse and lightning fast reflexes, the big orc was pure power. He took hit after hit, trusting in his finely crafted suit of plate to protect him, then lined Kazir up for powerful swings. The attacks were deceptively quick, far more so than Aginor's weapon should have allowed for, and several times, Kazir was clipped by the blade.

The ranger spun with those strikes, using them to boost his own momentum as he redoubled his efforts to breach the orc's armor or strike at his vulnerable face. Aginor knew his weaknesses well, and protected himself accordingly. The pair went back and forth, and neither seemed close to a decisive strike.

Larsik managed to lodge an arrow in one of the orcs closing in on him, but it got caught in the creature's leather armor and didn't slow it down at all. He backpedaled rapidly and started chanting, then brought his hands together in front of him. A second sheet of flame filled the air. Both orcs darted to the side, but only one was fast enough to escape being fully caught in it.

Both orcs shrieked, and Raifex began swearing loudly. He'd been closing in to save Larsik and had gotten caught in the fire as well, though they took the brunt of it and he was far enough away that the wash of heat only singed him and left his skin a bright shade of red.

Seraphina ducked past him and hamstrung the orc still standing. It made a clumsy grab for her as it toppled over, and she promptly slashed its hand. Both orcs were dead a moment later. As one, the group turned towards where Kazir and Aginor were still battling.

They spread out and started to circle the fight, meaning to catch the big orc and attack him from all sides. Seraphina and Larsik both stopped half way there when Aginor finally caught Kazir with his great sword. The ranger almost folded in half as the blade met his stomach, then blew into two pieces that spiraled away from each other in a spray of blood and gore.

The orc bellowed, a primal victory raw, and swept the blade towards Raifex, the only one of the trio who'd been unphased by the vicious assault and continued his advance. Raifex eyed the bloodied sword warily, but the part of him that was cold and calculating had seen Kazir's death and analyzed it. The ranger had gotten sloppy and the orc had gotten lucky at the same time. Raifex could take him.

What he wasn't sure of any longer was whether they could take Aginor alive and get their answers from him. The muscular orc was powerful, unbelievably so. He was too dangerous to hold back, too well armored to pull an attack. When Raifex struck, it would have to be a killing blow.

Aginor pressed the attack. He closed the distance in one leaping stride that ended with a downward slash of his weapon. He moved too quickly for Raifex to retreat out of the attack's range, so he had to dodge to the side. Undaunted, the orc arrested his blade's momentum and swept it after the thief.

Raifex dropped to a knee and brought his own sword up to deflect the orc's blade over his head, then surged forward back to his feet. He pushed inside the orc's reach and slammed his blade into a leather strap, tearing it and causing several plates to sag. He wanted to follow up the strike, but Aginor was too quick.

Rather than try to completely reverse his attack, the orc simply let go with one hand and slammed an elbow into Raifex. The thief caught the attack out of the corner of his eye and managed to avoid most of the blow. It still clipped his cheek, but if he hadn't seen it, he would have taken an armored elbow to the side of his head.

Aginor brought his arm down to grab hold of the sword, but before he could bring it back around, Seraphina's own blade cracked down on his hand. With a bellow of pain, the orc released his weapon and backhanded her. She spun through the air as she flew away from him and skidded across the stone.

Raifex quick stepped forward and lunged. His sword sunk almost a foot in through the hole he'd made by cutting through that strap. It sliced through the padding and dug into Aginor's chest, piercing the orc's organs and causing him to stagger backwards.

Blood welled up around the sword and out through the orc's crooked teeth. He looked disbelievingly at Raifex as the thief mercilessly twisted the sword. "At least I… got that damned… ranger," he gasped out as he collapsed.

"Well, that certainly screws our plans," Larsik commented.

"I didn't see another choice. He was too powerful to subdue. We should have tried to pump one of his peons for information," Raifex said tiredly.

Seraphina sat up and looked around. With a pained wince, she climbed to her feet. "What do we do now?" she asked.

"Well, I can think of one thing I've been itching to do."

Raifex walked over to the upper half of Kazir's corpse, reached down to grab his ear, and slashed his dagger down the side of the dead ranger's face. The ear came loose, and Raifex tossed it off to the side.

He looked up at the identical shocked expressions on his companions' faces and laughed. "It seemed appropriate," he explained. "And the bastard deserved it, honestly."

Larsik wore a thoughtful expression for a second, then he shrugged. He hadn't forgotten his own treatment at the hands of the cruel ranger. Seraphina looked like she wanted to protest, but in truth, Kazir had made no friends in the group. And he was already dead, after all.

"What do we do now?" Larsik asked.

Raifex looked around. "Start looting, I guess. We'll take what we can carry for our trouble, plan our next move when we get back to town."

They stripped the orcs of their weapons, but left the armor, as it was all damaged anyway. As they started clearing away the pile of money, leaving the copper behind, but dividing up the silver and gold, Raifex noticed a recessed niche in the wall. Suspicious, he ran his finger through the niche, then nodded to himself when he felt a hidden button give way.

A low pitched click sounded, and part of the wall popped loose. It was a fine example of dwarven craftsmanship, a hidden cupboard so cunningly concealed that it was more of a fluke than anything that they'd noticed it. Inside where several rolled sheathes of parchment and a stoppered bottle containing a thick white liquid. Tucked into the back corner was a thick ring that looked like it was made of braided rope, but was actually metal.

"Larsik, is any of this stuff magical?"

"Probably all of it," the sorcerer said as he eyed it up. "Take it with us and I'll look at it later. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to be."

Seraphina reached out and tugged on Larsik's pants. "What about this?" she said. "The orc was wearing this ring on his finger. When I hit his hand, I saw it flash."

The sorcerer peered down at the ring, then shrugged. "Looks magical, probably a common protective trinket. I really don't want to be doing this right now though."

In the end, they ended up with several bows, Kazir's two swords and Aginor's great sword and armor, and the cache of scrolls, rings, and single potion all stuffed into the ranger's pack. They decided to leave the bodies, not in the least because the weight of even a single corpse far exceeded the items they took. Beyond that, the only one they would have considered taking was Kazir's, and he'd treated them so poorly that no one felt bad about leaving him there.

"I want you carrying this," Raifex said to Larsik as he shoved the pack towards the sorcerer. "I know you're the most spent, but you're also about useless now, and there's no guarantees that there aren't still orcs around. If it comes down to a fight, I don't want to have to deal with this stuff."

There were no orcs, however. At least, any that might have still been alive scattered and disappeared long before they would have been found. The group left the mine unmolested, and set off towards town.


	11. Chapter 11

They sat at a table in the inn's common room and debated their next step while they waited for their lunches to arrive. The promise of hot food was perhaps more appealing to Larsik that arguing with Raifex, and he had little to add.

"I just don't see the scrolls being useful," Seraphina said. "We should sell them rather than hang on to them."

"There wouldn't be anyone around here to buy them," Raifex countered. "More to the point, Kazir told us that the orcs were only able to take the mine because the dwarves who controlled it had to leave. Their troubles might be related to our troubles, and these scrolls could be the valuables we need to buy our way to somebody in a position of power."

"I don't think dwarves do things like that."

"We'll call it a gesture of good will then, if you don't want to think of it as a bribe. Either way, returning the scrolls to them, scrolls which are of no use to us either way, can't hurt anything, especially when we're going to be asking them for a favor."

Seraphina's brow furrowed. "What favor?"

"We're going to be asking for help with the investigation. If we're lucky, they'll have the answers and we can wrap this whole thing up nice and easy. If not, maybe they can at least point us in the right direction."

They'd sold most of the equipment in town, though Raifex had kept one of the bows for himself. It was too fine to be orc-made, and he assumed they'd looted the lot of them off some unfortunate travelers. Kazir's weapons were still safely stowed away. They were too distinct and recognizable, and they didn't want the townsfolk to associate them with the ranger's death.

Their lunch arrived just then, delaying any further discussion. They sat silent while they ate, each keeping their own thoughts. When they were done, Larsik started the conversation back up. "He's right. We didn't learn anything useful here. All we did was clear out a mine and take out a troublesome tribe of orcs. We need to move on."

"Do either of you know how to get to these dwarves?" Seraphina asked.

"Kazir said they were the 'dwarves of Irinom.' I'm sure someone will be able to point us in the right direction," Raifex said. He flagged Malduke with his hand, and the innkeeper walked over.

"What can I get you?" he asked pleasantly.

"Maps," Raifex said. "The dwarves that controlled the mine, the Irinom clan, we want to talk to them, and we need to know how to find them."

Malduke frowned thoughtfully for a second. "There's a dwarf who lives in town, does work as a cooper. They call him Rudder. Don't ask me why. I think he was originally from Irinom. You should ask him."

"Thanks," Larsik told the man. He turned to the table and asked, "Shall we then?"

"I'll talk to the dwarf," Raifex volunteered. "You two gather supplies for the trip."

"I can help with the foodstuffs," Malduke interjected. "Just tell me how many day's worth you need, and I'll put it together."

"I want to get my chain shirt mended from that arrow," Seraphina said. "Two of the links are broken now. It shouldn't take long to fix."

"Guess I'll just laze about then," Larsik grinned.

"Do something productive," Seraphina scolded as she slapped his knee.

"Fine, fine! I'll apprise our employer of what we've done so far and see about getting some warmer clothes for us if we're going to be heading deeper into the mountains."

Seraphina and Larsik stood at the edge of town, the former wearing her freshly mended chain shirt, and the latter with a pair of fur lined cloaks draped over his arm and a third draped across his shoulders. Raifex joined them, a scowl on his face. "Bastard charged me ten gold pieces for the information," he grumbled.

"Sounds like you got swindled," Seraphina said.

Raifex glared at her, and both she and Larsik burst out laughing. "It's not like it came out of our pockets anyway," Larsik pointed out.

"That's not the point."

"Whatever. I had Malduke make up a week's worth of food for us, which only cost me a single gold coin," Larsik commented. He smirked when Raifex shot him a dirty look. "Will that be long enough?"

"Yes, it shouldn't take us even half that time to reach the Irinom Stronghold."

"Great," Seraphina said. "Let's get going then."

"We got a message from Malduke," Balv said.

"Oh?" Daedric asked.

"Yes. They're heading farther north into the mountains. Larsik himself wrote the note to tell you their plans."

Daedric laughed. "Well, that was certainly nice of him. It does make paying Malduke to spy on them a bit redundant though."

"Indeed. Oh, before I forget, the steward is looking for you. I believe it was something about a missing serving woman." Balv's eyes shot down a hacked apart body at Daedric's feet. "I'd guess he means her."

Daedric shrugged and grabbed a towel off a nearby table. "Probably," he said as he wiped blood off his hands. "I'm almost done with this part of the ritual anyway. Two more sacrifices should do it. I'll tell him that staffing problems are his concern, and not to bother me with runaway scullery maids."

Daedric tossed the bloody towel aside and strode across the chamber. "Best head him off before he starts snooping. Make sure no one sees you disposing of the body."

"Sir," Balv said, "You've got blood on your boots still."

Daedric stopped and looked down. "Damn it all," he grumbled. "I only brought the one towel with me too." It had landed in a pool of blood and was rapidly soaking through, making it useless. He scanned the room for something to clean his boots with. His eyes lit up on an old tapestry on the far wall. With a few quick strides, he was next to it and lifted his boot up to the corner of the tapestry. He wiped both boots off quickly, then regarded the mess.

"I'm sure no one will recognize the stains once the rest of the room is scoured," he remarked. "Very well, I'm off."

The wind whipped around them, tugging at the cloaks they held close to their bodies. They stood, backs against the mountain, and stared down at the little troop far below them on the trails. Magic sharpened one's vision, and the individual details were easily discernable, though the travelers far below them would have seen only little dark blips against the snow if they'd bothered to look up.

"These are the ones?" The speaker was a woman, tall and willowy, her movements quick and precise as she viewed the travelers.

The other was silent, and only a nod shook the hood of his cloak. He ran a finger across the side of his face, tracing the edge of the freshly scarred tissue. With a snarl, he glared down at the three black specs. Her magic didn't extend to him, but he could easily imagine each of their faces.

"They might, perhaps, be useful to us," the woman continued, ticking a long, polished nail against her lips as she thought. "If not, we can always kill them later."

The man scowled, but didn't say anything. His companion regarded him for a second as if waiting for him to comment, then shrugged. "Come on, we're late already, and for all his uses, Boghnar has the patience of a child."

The woman began the words to a spell, and the man reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder. She finished chanting, and they both disappeared.

Seraphina snuggled deep into the folds of her fur lined cloak. "Are we almost there?" she asked, her voice muffled. "It's freezing out here."

Larsik seemed to be having an even worse time of it, but he'd long since ceased complaining and focused merely on holding his cloak as close to his body as possible. Raifex glanced over at the sorcerer occasionally, but didn't say anything about it.

"Soon," he told Seraphina. "If we're not lost."

Larsik looked up in alarm, causing Raifex to laugh. "No, we're not lost," he assured the other man.

"Good," Larsik said. His lips were cracked and his skin was tinged a light blue. He'd been shivering uncontrollably for several hours, and only the promise of reaching the Irinom Stronghold soon had kept him going. They'd been woefully unprepared for the journey, and underestimated how much colder it would be higher up in the mountains.

They were moving down now though, following a wide trail that shot straight north and dipped lower with every step. Larsik was hopeful that, if nothing else, dropping altitude would warm them. So far, that hadn't happened either.

"What's that?" Seraphina asked.

Larsik's attention snapped from his own condition to the trail. "Where?" he asked.

"There, against the silhouette of the mountain."

"I don't see it."

Raifex pointed up. "There. Two straight lines, too straight to be natural. I'd guess some sort of watch tower. I'd say we're about there."

"That's the best news I've had in two days," Larsik said, relief plainly evident in his tone.

Half an hour after that, they came to a set of gates fitted between two mountain walls. The walls were carved and manned by a contingent of dwarven guards, and one of them yelled out from the wall as the group approached it. "State your business."

"Travelers from the south," Raifex called back up. "Here to meet with the Irinom clan about the invasion of monsters coming out of the mountains."

There was some brief discussion up on the walls, and the gates swung open. "Thank the Gods," Larsik muttered as they walked through the open gates.


	12. Chapter 12

They were left waiting for over three hours before a gruff, thickly bearded dwarf finally showed them in to the council hall to meet the dwarf in charge, Darina. He stood at the far end of a table with a map set into it. Some sort of clear lacquer had been applied across it, making the map the actual surface of the table.

Raifex gave it a cursory examination as he approached it. It showed the mountains they were in, but in far greater detail and scale than anything he'd ever seen, and with hundreds of straight lines running through it. He could only guess as to their purpose, but he suspected they represented tunnels underground.

On the table's surface itself were several markers colored blue, green, and red. The blue markers were clustered on the north end of the map, and the green and red were close together, with the red being a bit farther south and stretched out along the tunnel lines.

Darina watched Raifex take the map in with a glance, and grunted to himself. "So you're the ones that wanted to talk to me so bad you waited hours to do it," he said. "Must be important then."

"Oh, yes. Very much so," Seraphina replied. Darina's eyebrows shot up when she spoke. He'd assumed she was a halfling, but closer examination revealed that obviously wasn't the case.

"Well smite me if it isn't a gnome," he said. "It's been a century and a half since I've seen one of your kind."

Larsik's head whipped around and he stared at Seraphina. "You really are a gnome," he breathed out. "Really?"

"Of course I am," she said as she shot an annoyed look his way. "Why would I say I was if I wasn't?"

Larsik shrugged, embarrassed, and Darina laughed. "Don't be so hard on him," the dwarf chuckled. "I wouldn't expect a human to recognize one. I myself thought they were all gone."

"Can you tell me about what happened?" Seraphina asked excitedly.

Darina shook his head. "No, sorry," he replied. "I don't know much about it myself, just that the gnomes were all wiped out a long time ago. You're the only one I've met since then."

"How? Where? Why?"

"I said I don't know, girl!" Darina snapped. He took a deep breath, then continued speaking. "Sorry. I'm sure it's a touchy subject for you, but I honestly can't help you any more than that. If you've come all this way to find out more, you've wasted a trip."

"Actually, that's not why we're here," Raifex cut in. "We're here about a more common problem, one involving orcs and goblins."

"Bah," Darina gave a dismissive wave of his hand, "orcs and goblins aren't problems. Even the ogres aren't a problem, not really. It's the frost giants that're the problem. There's a force to be reckoned with. Smart, strong, and vicious."

"Frost giants," Larsik muttered. "I wonder why."

"Wish I knew," Darina said. "But regardless, frost giants are a problem, not orcs and goblins."

"These blue markers represent known frost giant locations then?" Raifex said as he gestured towards the table. At Darina's nod, he studied it closer. "Green is you then. Who are the red?"

"Duergar," the dwarf spat out. "Dark dwarves from deep under the stone. We don't know if it's a coincidence that they're acting up or not. Bad timing if it is though."

"You're awful trusting of people you just met to tell us all this," Larsik remarked.

Darina barked out a laugh. "You've been sitting inside my fortress for hours now. You think my wizards and clerics haven't done any work on finding out who you are in that time? I know you're the group out of Garrin, working for Lord Daedric. We couldn't find out everything, there were obviously a few… surprises." His eyes flicked down to Seraphina.

"But it seems like the easiest way to find out why you're here is to just ask you, since you're already here and all. So, what do you need?"

"Daedric employed us to find out what's been going on, and, if possible, stop it," Larsik said.

"And that's led you to me," the dwarf nodded to himself as he spoke. "Well, simply put, the frost giant clans have become extremely aggressive and started expanding their territory. This pushed out the nearby tribal societies of the ogres and orcs and forced them to move farther south. They in turn took lands from the weaker goblin tribes, and it all spilled out of the mountains. The longer it goes on, the more the frost giants expand, and the more these monsters come swarming over everything else."

"So what do we do about it?" Seraphina asked.

Darina shrugged. "I don't know about you. We're fortifying and preparing for a long winter. I only hope that our two problems aren't related. A coordinated attack would be… problematic."

"That's your strategy? You're just going to hope for the best?" Raifex asked, disbelief evident in his tone.

"Of course not," Darina scowled at him. "We're collecting as much information as possible, and right now they don't appear to be connected. But we're going to assume the worst and prepare as if the frost giants and the duergar will attack us at the same time, even if only coincidentally."

"Maybe we could help find out if they're working together," Seraphina offered.

"And just how're you planning that?"

The gnome shrugged and glanced at her companions. Larsik shrugged back, and Raifex just stared at her. "We'll think of something," she offered.

"If you're feeling foolhardy, there is a possibility," Darina said. "There's a witch named Talisira that lives north of here. She's dangerous, but you might convince her to help you for the right price. She's got a volatile temper though, and it's even odds that she doesn't scour you off the side of the mountain before you ever get a word in."

"That's a lot of risk just for the chance at getting some information from here," Raifex remarked.

"That's why none of my men have been to see her. We steer clear of that witch. She's mean as a viper and quicker to attack. If you're volunteering to help though, I'll see about getting you a map made to find her."

"Can we have a minute to discuss it?" Seraphina asked.

Darina laughed. "If you want. I don't have all day for you to decide though."

They moved off to the side of the room, and Darina obligingly turned his attention back towards the table. Larsik shot a glance over his shoulder, but the dwarf was studiously ignoring them. He turned back to the group when Seraphina tugged on his shirt.

"What do we think?" she asked. "This sounds really dangerous."

"Could it be any worse than a pitch black mine full of orcs?" Larsik said back.

"Of course it could be," Raifex told him. "There are a lot of things that could be worse than that. I wonder how dangerous this witch really is. Is the possible gain of some information worth the risk of her turning her powers on us?"

"I'm not without powers of my own," Larsik reminded him, bringing his hands up and flexing his fingers.

Raifex had seen the sorcerer's abilities first hand, and he was far from impressed. So far, Larsik had exhibited only weak abilities, and had tired quickly. What worried him was what Larsik might do if he was wounded or killed. For perhaps the hundredth time, he tried to figure out why he was still traveling with the man.

"I think we should risk it," Seraphina announced. "These people aren't interested in why this is happening. They just want to dig in and wait out the storm. We won't be able to find out what we need to know here."

"What do we need to know?" Larsik asked.

"Why the frost giant clans started expanding, for one thing. That is what we were hired to do. And how to stop it."

"Letting the dwarves fight it out with them wouldn't help us," Raifex added. "They'll defend their fortress, but either they'll be wiped out, or they'll win and the frost giants will move on. Either way, I don't see them going on the offensive to protect the humans."

"Well that's just an unfair assumption to make," Larsik stated.

"No, he's right," Seraphina cut in. "They're not bad people, but in a situation like this, they'll protect themselves first. They'll speed us along our way if for no other reason than because it helps them, but I wouldn't expect them to weaken themselves to the point where they're risking their city. Dwarves aren't stupid."

Raifex gave her an appraising glance. "Interesting the things you know," he muttered.

"So we're going to see this witch then?" Larsik asked.

"Looks that way."

"Darina," Seraphina called out. "We decided to go visit Talisira. How soon do you think you can have that map ready?"


	13. Chapter 13

Larsik stood on the street corner, glaring at Seraphina. "Hurry up," he snapped. "It's cold and I want to go back inside."

"Stop complaining," she replied lightly. "You've got a whole extra layer of clothing on you now."

"Still cold," he muttered to himself.

Irinom Stronghold was a split city, with a large portion of it being aboveground, and the rest burrowed into the side of a mountain. The above ground portion was open to travelers, and it contained a variety of shops where dwarven merchants displayed their wares. Many of the shops even had rare and expensive huge glass windows that allowed travelers to peer into the buildings.

Seraphina stood in front of one of those, looking at a display shelf of rings. Some were magical, others not, but all had been expertly crafted and were far more expensive than she could afford. The shop's owner, a short burly dwarf with a great curling black beard, sat on a stool inside and watched her curiously as she moved down the glass window to inspect the jewelry.

With a sigh, she walked over to Larsik. "I really wanted to get that ring enchanted with feather falling," she said. "All these mountain trails are making me nervous, especially the narrower ones. But it's too expensive."

The sorcerer might have been more inclined to be charitable, except that he was freezing cold. Even the extra thick fur lined tunic he'd bought wasn't helping all that much. "I hate these mountains," he said as he hugged his cloak closer to him.

Seraphina looked at him quizzically. "It's not really that cold," she said. "It's not warm or anything, but it's not so bad as all that."

Larsik mumbled something under his breath, something that Seraphina guessed it was probably for the best she couldn't make out. "Let's just go see if Raifex has the map yet," she said with a sigh.

They turned towards the east end of the military city, where the gatehouse stood with its back to the mountains. Gatehouse was a misleading term. While it did in fact stand next to the gates to the inner city, it was also three stories high and functioned as a city hall for the outer city's trade and commerce. More importantly to them, Raifex was supposed to be there, procuring the map Darina had promised.

"He gave me a bit of advice," Raifex laughed as he met them at the front door. "He said we should try our best not to die. He'd like to see us alive again."

"Well that's great advice," Larsik griped. "I didn't plan on dying, but it's good to know I was going in the right direction there."

"He's just mad about having to go back out into the cold," Seraphina told Raifex.

The thief glanced over at Larsik, his lips thin. Larsik glared back at him from the bundle of fur lining framing his face. Neither said anything.

"I guess we'd better be on our way then," Seraphina said to break the tension. "Sooner we get going, the sooner we can come back."

"Great," Larsik grumbled. "Back out into the cold mountains."

"It shouldn't take very long, at least," Raifex offered him.

It took them less than two days to reach their destination, and Darina's map proved to be accurate down to the last detail. They rounded a bend in a mountain and stopped. Right where they expected to find Talisira's home, there was an ornate door carved into the stone wall. It was decorated with strange symbols that none of them recognized or understood.

"This might just be the place," Raifex commented.

"Good," Larsik said. "Let's get out of this damn wind then."

The mountain paths had been even worse out of Irinom, and a fierce wind had been blowing continuously, blasting them with snow flurries. Larsik had been complaining bitterly almost the entire trip, and had only lapsed into silence when Raifex had snapped and threatened to shove him off the path they were walking on.

They looked at each other, then Seraphina shrugged and put a hand on the door. It had been fitted inside the rock tightly, and it resisted her push. She shoved harder, and with the sound of stone grating on stone, it slid open. Inside was darkness. She glanced over her shoulder at Larsik, who reached into a pouch and pulled out a coin. He stepped past her through the door, then cast the spell that would cause it to shed light.

They walked down the tunnel, which grew brighter the farther in they got rather than darker. Soon, Larsik's glowing coin seemed redundant, its own meager light washed out by the illumination that was naturally present. The light didn't come from anywhere; it was just there. It was soft and white, and after it had completely overshadowed Larsik's own spell, he shrugged and stuffed the coin back into his pouch.

Finally, the tunnel opened up into a large cave. Crystal formations of various size and colors jutted out of the walls and floor, hung down from the ceilings, and in a few cases, even floated in midair. They were dark and shadowy, and upon closer examination, Seraphina realized that there were things inside the crystals.

"What is this?" she asked.

Raifex shrugged and looked around warily. Larsik bent closer to examine one, a small orange crystal cluster with something dark and shadowy inside it. "It looks like whatever this is has arms and legs, a head, and maybe a tail here. I can't tell. What happened to it, I wonder."

"Maybe some sort of preservative or artwork?" Raifex guessed as he paced the cavern, checking behind the crystal formations and poking into corners. "I don't see any other exits, so this has got to be the place."

"This whole thing stinks of a trap," Seraphina said. Raifex shot her a look, then nodded.

"I guess we'll just have to hope she's in a talkative mood," Larsik responded, referring to the witch.

"I'm not really a witch," a woman's voice came from the far side of the cavern. "Seer might be a more accurate term, but that wouldn't be complete either."

Part of the back wall shimmered and disappeared, revealing a new tunnel with a tall human woman standing in it. Before anyone could do anything, she raised her hands and spoke a sharp word. Larsik felt as though an invisible giant hand had gripped him and was holding him in place. His muscles were locked tight, and he couldn't make his jaw work to mouth the words of a spell. Seraphina charged past him, but before she'd made it even half way across the cavern, the same feeling overcame her.

Talisira gestured, and she felt her body straighten out. Her feet started marching her towards the witch, and stopped in front of her. To her left, Larsik stood. Raifex was off to the right, crouched partway behind a crystal cluster with a dagger in his hand, but he was obviously just as frozen as she was. A moment later, he sheathed the weapon and joined the lineup.

Talisira looked them over, and smiled. "You've been talking with that old grouch, Darina. No doubt he's told you all sorts of tales of what a horrible person I am and such nonsense, then had the gall to send you to me to, what? Beat a favor out of me? No, that's not quite right. You came of your own volition."

She tapped a finger against her lips as she considered them. "Now, what to do with you? Well, for starters, let's answer that question you came here to ask. No, the frost giants and the duergar aren't working together. It's more of an opportunistic invasion. The duergar found out about the problems topside and decided to capitalize on it.

"Next, you want some insight into how to stop it. Well, the bad news is that you can't really stop it. The orcs and goblins are already into the low lands, and the three of you aren't going to change that. That will be left up to all the little humans and elves to muster their forces and drive them back, or not." She held up a finger. "That's not to say you should do nothing. By all means, you should attempt to stop the frost giants. Their leader, Boghnar, has something that will become very valuable to your group on a very personal level."

She paced back and forth, peering at each of them in turn. "We might as well get on with it then. I think that you'll probably live through this, and if not, I guess it won't matter one way or another," she said.

Seraphina felt something clamp hard on her foot. She tried to tilt her head to look at it, but she was still locked in place. The thing, whatever it was, moved up to include her leg. Soon, her entire body was under pressure. It wasn't until it reached her face and her eyes were covered that she realized she was being engulfed in crystal, the same as all the other unfortunates in the chamber. A haze of silver colored her vision, and she realized in a panic that she couldn't breathe.

The crystal cocoon covered her completely, leaving her locked and bound inside it. Next to her, Larsik was in a similar one, though his was streaked fiery red and orange. Raifex alone stood unencased. With an abrupt negating gesture from Talisira, he felt the magic holding him break. He stumbled a step and caught his balance.

He shot her a questioning look, and she raised an eyebrow. "We need to have a talk," she said. "It would be best if your companions never know about it."


	14. Chapter 14

Seraphina stood in a dark room. The floor was black, its surface cut with green lines to make hexagon shaped tiles. The lines continued up the wall and ceiling, and a single hallway led away from the room. She stepped down it hesitantly. The hall continued for an indeterminable length, but eventually she reached the end and looked out over a wide chasm.

A robed woman, a gnome like her, kneeled at the edge of it. Seraphina approached her hesitantly, not wanting to startle her. She reached out a hand to touch her, only to discover the woman was frozen like a statue. She looked like flesh and blood, but the robe was smooth and solid instead of soft and pliable.

Seraphina leaned around a bit to look at the statue's face. Somehow, she wasn't surprised to see that it was her own under the robe's hood. The whole scene seemed familiar to her in a way that was actually just a little bit irritating. She felt like she was looking at a scene from her memory, and she should know what happened next, but she couldn't remember.

A burst of red rocketed up over the chasm edge in front of her, blowing her backwards. She peered up, open mouthed, as a huge red dragon filled the sky, its burning golden eyes glaring down angrily at her. Its mouth opened and there was a sharp intake of breath, but before he could burn her to ashes with its fire, two smaller streaks of silver slammed into it. The red dragon was slammed down over the chasm edge, and Seraphina scooted forward to see it being dragged out of the sky by two silver dragons.

Beside her, the other gnome had come to life and was also peering over the edge. "What's going on?" Seraphina asked her, but there was no response. She poked the gnome to get her attention, but was ignored. Seraphina frowned at her, then looked back towards the dragons. Together, they peered down the chasm and watched as the three dragons battled in the sky. Below them, a veritable army of small, red skinned creatures danced about in glee as they too watched the fight.

One of the silvers managed to get on top of the red and ride it into a wall, sending them both plummeting towards the ground. The gnome next to Seraphina cried out in denial, but there was no changing what had happened. The red twisted in midair and dragged the silver underneath it, so that when they crashed, it was the smaller dragon lying twisted and broken on the side of the mountain.

The other silver swooped down and unleashed a cone of frigid cold air on the red. It lashed out with its claws and sank its fangs into the red's neck. Even from the top of the chasm where Seraphina stood, she could hear the crunch as its fangs penetrated the red's scales. The red bellowed in agony, but the silver wouldn't be deterred. It continued raking its claws, and a moment later, it released the red's neck only to breathe another blast of ice directly into its face.

Rime covered its features, and ice dangled from its jaw. The red cried out again, but this time its voice was hoarse and weak sounding. The small red creatures on the ground swarmed towards the dragons, and the silver was forced to retreat. It lifted up and flapped its wings powerfully, gaining distance from the ground. It swept by for one last freezing breath attack before it took off, though.

Seraphina watched it fly away, somehow still looking graceful despite practically limping through the air from its injuries. Next to her, her duplicate shook with sobs as she stared down at the two dead dragons at the bottom of the chasm. Awkwardly, she reached a hand out to comfort the other gnome. As soon as she touched her, the world faded away in a wash of colors, and she was standing back in the black room with its hexagonal patterned green lines.

Another hallway had opened up, but instead of taking it, she plopped down on the floor and mentally replayed what she'd seen. That gnome had been her, that much was obvious. She didn't remember any of that happening, but she didn't really remember much at all, so that was no help. She didn't know where or when she'd been in that vision. On the other hand, she had been caught by a witch, and who knew what was real and what wasn't anymore?

Sitting there wasn't going to do anything to help her though. She heaved herself back up onto her feet and peered down the new hallway curiously. It looked just like the old one, except going a different direction. She started walking down it, and the farther she went, the darker it got. Finally, once the green lines had faded completely, she began trailing a hand across the wall to guide her.

The wall fell away, and she walked into a large, lightless room. The air felt different, cooler, somehow, like it would just before it began to rain. Something shifted in the darkness before her, something massive. Its body ground against the floor as it moved, and even without being able to see it, she knew it was enormous.

Larsik stood in the middle of a cracked and broken chamber, one apparently made of ebony. Green lines laced it in a hexagonal pattern, but the floor had been split apart, and red light welled up through the rifts. A single hallway led away from the room, but it had collapsed, and was filled with the same glossy black rock checkered with green that the room was made out of.

He approached it anyway, hopping over broken patches of floor as he went, to examine the damage. It was complete enough that he didn't see himself digging through it. Some of the stone chunks were as big around as his chest, and he wasn't that strong to begin with. His magic wasn't strong enough to blow through the stone either.

Even as he thought that, he realized that it was. He waved a hand, and the ebony rock dissolved into a black and green puddle. Larsik looked down at that hand and flexed his fingers ponderously. He felt like he'd always known how to do that, even though he didn't have a clue what he'd done.

Either way, he'd cleared the hallway and could leave. He strode confidently across the black stonework, occasionally tracing the green lines with his fingers as he walked. The hall seemed to continue on forever, and he was seriously starting to consider melting a hole in the wall and leaving that way.

He looked at the wall thoughtfully, then reached out a hand and made a twisting motion. An entire section liquefied and drained away, leaving him standing over at an edge looking down on other sealed tunnels like the one he was in. They looped around and through each other, forming a veritable maze. Most of them were that same black with green, but laced through them, sometimes intersecting, was a second set. Those were red glowing with jagged black lines running through them.

"Interesting," Larsik muttered to himself as he considered the passages. He stepped out into empty space and lightly drifted down to one of the red and black corridors. He tried to melt open a hole, but the material resisted his command. Shrugging, he altered his own body to turn transparent and ghostly, and slipped through the floor.

He regained solidity on the other side and touched down. Unlike the black stone room and hallway he'd started in, this one was alive with flaming light. It rushed up and down the walls, which themselves seemed to be made of fire held behind glass. The jagged black lines made panels as they intersected at random points, forming squares, circles, and other shapes on the walls.

Larsik peered down one direction, then the other. Frowning, he tapped a finger on his chin as he thought. Finally, with a helpless shrug, he lifted off the floor and began drifting down the hallway at high speed. It didn't even occur to him to think of how he was doing it. He simply wanted to move faster than a walking speed, and his magic obeyed.

The farther he went, the hotter it got. The living flames seemed to be straining to reach out of the wall and catch him, and more than once, the jagged black lines writhed across its surface. He paused to watch them move, nodded as if he'd expected it all along, and continued on his way.

The hallway crossed other ones, forming an intersecting, looping maze of corridors. Larsik approached each intersection without hesitancy, gliding smoothly past them and moving forward. He didn't even bother to look down the other halls, he was so sure of where he was going.

He stopped suddenly, and looking down, ghosted through the floor. He came into a large, open chamber shaped like a sphere. Floating in the center was what looked like a gigantic egg, easily taller than he was. It pulsed steadily with light, and heat radiated from it, heat so hot that Larsik was forced protect himself from it magically.

He drifted around it, examining it from different angles as he tried to puzzle out what it was. Finally, he lifted up a hand and placed it on the egg's surface. Immediately, painful electric jolts shot down the length of his arm, but Larsik didn't break contact. He used the connection to mentally explore the egg a moment longer, then pulled away.

"Bael," he said to the egg, and a shadow inside shifted. It was curled up on itself, but Larsik could see that it was man shaped, with a long tail and huge wings. "I remember you now."

He willed it, and a giant whip of energy appeared and struck the egg. It shuddered and wobbled from the blow, and a thin crack appeared in its surface. The whip struck again, and the crack widened.


	15. Chapter 15

Black spots danced across his vision. Something was wrong, and Raifex felt like he should know what. That was a sensation he'd been having for a while now. Every time he thought about it, he got woozy and his eyes blurred. If he pressed it, the black spots came.

The only thing he got for his troubles was a voice that said, "When it is time, you shall know." Damned if he knew what that meant, but then, he supposed that was the whole point.

He stood in the center of some giant maze. He had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there, but he did know that doing anything was better than waiting. He started off down a hallway at random, but stopped before he'd gotten more than a few feet in. If he kept going that way, he'd take three turns before he came to a dead end. He would waste five minutes backtracking and then give it up as a lost cause.

"Now how do I know that?" he wondered aloud. Experimentally, he started down a different path instead. Almost immediately, that whole section unfolded in his head. He knew that he'd spend over three hours exploring, finally stumble across the exit, and that if he went one more hallway to the right, he'd be out in less than ten minutes.

"Is this some kind of test, Talisira? Or are you just messing with me?" he asked the empty air. Not surprisingly, there was no response.

Raifex started walking and, exactly as he knew it would happen, he walked out of the maze into a giant empty room. He looked around expectantly, but nothing materialized out of the darkness to challenge him. He waited patiently, trying to figure out what was going on, and what would happen next. Finally, he walked across the room.

Halfway there, he stopped and looked up. Above him, directly in the center of the ceiling, was a hole. Inside the hole were green glowing lines on the wall forming a hexagon pattern. Raifex looked around the room for something to help him reach the ceiling, but the entire massive chamber was empty.

Between his feet was a design etched into the floor. It consisted of a circle with a script of runes bordering the inside of it. In the center of that was a stylized eye, closed. Raifex studied it for a second, a frown stamped on his face.

He squatted down to read the runes more closely. He didn't understand them, but the more he studied them, the less their placement made sense. He was almost positive that one segment was completely backwards.

His eyes started to blur as he stared at the runes. Absently, he brushed a hand across the closed eye in the center, and with a loud pop, the runes detached themselves from the stone. Each rune was on a separate tile, and they all pulled apart easily.

Raifex rearranged the part he thought was backwards, then, on a whim, switched several other tiles as well. As he put the last rune into place, they all locked back together and rotated down into the stone. The eye in the center opened, and a beam of pure white light shot out of it into the hole in the ceiling. The hexagonal pattern of green lines pushed out of the wall and extended down, stopping just over his head. Tentatively, he reached up and grabbed hold of the lowest bar of light. He pulled on it to test its strength, then vaulted up onto the makeshift ladder.

Raifex scaled to the top quickly, slowing only marginally when he was actually into the hole. The bars of light still extended out of the stone, but not enough to wrap his hands around. He was forced to put all of his weight on his fingertips and toes, but he'd climbed much worse.

It was only when he'd reached the top that he realized that he'd seen the rune circle and eye design before. Talisira had shown it to him, but he couldn't remember when. Considering he'd only known her for a minute before he'd woken up in wherever he was, that didn't make much sense. Once again, that voice echoed in his head, "When it is time, you shall know."

Larsik floated around the egg, studying the silhouette inside it. "Bael," he called out softly, "Wake up, Bael."

He laced the call with magic, and this time the shadow reacted violently. New cracks appeared as it thrashed inside the egg, but as they did, electric blue bands materialized to reinforce the shell. Larsik waved at a hand at one absently. It shifted and flexed, but didn't break.

The sorcerer growled and threw both hands out. Now the bands flailed wildly, lashing out as him, but Larsik's magic blocked them. Two of the bands snapped, but new ones materialized in their places.

Frustrated, he ceased his attack. The bands settled into place, and the cracks started to slowly close. "Very clever defense," Larsik said begrudgingly. "It looks like I can't break this from the outside. You'll have to work at it from within, Bael. And just to make sure you don't go back to sleep on me, here's a bit of incentive for you."

Larsik tapped a finger against his temple several times, and when he was done, his nail was a metallic glossy black. "A bit of my memory," the sorcerer announced. "Something to motivate you. Lut was the one who sealed you in here, working through his agent, Derrow."

Larsik flicked his finger towards the egg, and the sliver of black shot out of his nail. It pierced the shell easily, not even disturbing the blue bands. The shadow inside shifted, and an echoing roar of rage filled the chamber.

The creature's eyes opened, two great silver lamplight pools slashed through with vertical black pupils. Each was almost a foot across, and they immediately locked onto Seraphina. She lout of a squeak of fear and scooted backwards, only to find a solid wall behind her.

"Who are you?" a voice rumbled out of the darkness. The behemoth shifted again, its bulk scraping the floor, and turned to focus on her directly.

"Me?" Seraphina asked. "Nobody special. Just a gnome."

"A gnome," the voice echoed in amusement. "What is your name?"

"Seraphina, um... sir."

The voice laughed, a wild sound that bounced around the vast chamber. "Sir?" the creature repeated. "No need to be so formal, little gnome. Ah, but I forget myself. Your kind do not see so well in the dark."

The creature spoke a word of magic, and light filled the room. Metallic silver scales shone, covering a smooth, muscular bulk. A set of large wings were folded against the creature's back, and it lay on its belly, head resting on its forelegs.

"A dragon," Seraphina breathed out. Not just any dragon, either. "I saw you earlier, fighting against another dragon, a great big red one."

The dragon gave her a confused look. "Me?" it asked. No, not it, she realized: he. "I don't remember fighting any reds. Are you sure you've got the right silver?"

"Yes, it was you," she insisted. Excitement edged her voice as she continued. "And there was another silver. You were both fighting the old red together."

"I don't remember that," the dragon said, puzzled. "Another dragon? Why do I feel like that sounds right?"

The dragon looked around the room, as if noticing his surroundings for the first time. "Where are we?" he asked.

"I don't know," Seraphina told him. She explained how she'd traveled to a witch's home and been trapped, and the vision she'd seen. "Maybe I'm dead, and this is my afterlife," she finished.

"Do you really believe that?" the dragon asked her.

"No. I think she's got me in some sort of spell, and I need to figure out how to escape."

"That seems like a smart decision," the dragon agreed.

"Right, that's what I thought. So, how do I get out of here?"

The dragon rolled its shoulders in a shrug. "I haven't got a clue."

Seraphina scowled at it. "Could you help me find the exit then?"

The dragon's head swayed on its long, serpentine neck as it looked around. "I think I can help with that. At least, I can try."

"Great! Um... what's your name, by the way?"

The dragon paused mid scan. "My name? That's odd. I can't quite recall. You'd think that's something you'd know, wouldn't you?"

"That's alright," Seraphina told him. "I don't remember a lot of stuff about my life either."

"I don't think I care for this," the dragon said in a worried tone. "I wonder what else I've forgotten."

"Well, no time like the present to start making new memories," she said cheerfully.

The dragon looked far from convinced, but he merely shook his head instead of arguing. "I don't think this form will do for exploring. I'm simply too big," he told the gnome.

"What are you going to do then?" she asked, excited to see some dragon magic.

A flash of brilliant silver life blinded her. When she could see again, a small orb the same color as the dragon had been floated in front of her. "That's strange," she said, "It looks familiar."

She reached out a hand to touch the orb, then gave a cry of surprise when it shot forward into her chest. She felt herself falling backwards, then everything went dark.


	16. Chapter 16

The blue bands arced wildly between Larsik and the egg. He cried out in pain, tried to fend them off, but they slid into his magic, lashing him over and over again. He could feel himself fading away with each blow.

"No!" he screamed in denial. "Not here! Not in this place. Here, I am a god!"

The bands shattered around him, but reformed immediately on the egg. Larsik panted for breath as he looked himself over. The mental struggle had pushed him over the edge; he had nothing left. He could already see his body wavering, his consciousness fading away to snap back into his real body.

Inside the egg, the form continued to thrash and batter against its prison. It had awakened with a vengeance, and the blue bands were already starting to arc outwards again. "Remember, Bael!" Larsik yelled. "It was Lut. He did this, and if you let yourself stay trapped in here, he'll take everything."

He struggled against it, but his body faded away, and he was gone.

Raifex stood in a small room. The hole had closed behind him, and no other exits were visible. The walls were blank, and there was no furniture. For all intents and purposes, he was trapped. He ran his hands over the walls, his sensitive fingertips searching for a hidden cache or switch. None presented themselves, so he turned his attention back to the floor where the hole had been.

As soon as he brushed the spot with his hand, he felt a give that stone didn't have. He plunged his hand through solid rock and felt the bars of light still jutting from the walls of the hole. That was something at least. He wasn't really trapped, though he didn't see how going backwards would help.

He was obviously missing something, but he was at a loss as to what. He looked around again, then considered the stone covering the hole. It looked normal enough, but touching it had revealed that it wasn't even close. Slowly, on his hands and knees, he examined the rest of the floor for something similar.

He allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction when he found a second hole in the corner. He patted around in the rock, which didn't go down more than a few inches before becoming true, solid stone, until he felt some sort of nub. It gave way when he pushed on it, and an entire wall of the room shimmered and faded away.

Raifex peered cautiously down the newly exposed hall before setting foot in it. He worked his way down its lengthy slowly, checking the walls and floor carefully to make sure he didn't miss anything. He reached the end without discovering anything else hidden, and stood in front of a single stone door, unadorned or marked in any way.

He turned the handle, and it swung open. In the room behind it was nothing but a large, stand up mirror. Raifex stepped around it, circled it once to look at it from different angles, then finally stuck a hand in front of it. It seemed like nothing special, just a regular mirror.

He stepped in front of it fully, and his reflection looked back out at him. Then, with a shiver of glass, it stepped free of the mirror and onto the stone floor. Raifex dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword and took a step back.

"That won't be necessary," his duplicate said. "I'm not here to fight you, just explain a few things."

"Like what?" Raifex asked warily, still not releasing his grip on his weapon.

"For starters, you'd like to know where you are. After that, you want an explanation about how you're figuring out how everything works. Finally, you want to know how to get out."

Raifex laughed. "I'm in some sort of artificial construct. Nothing here is real so I'm guessing that I'm making my own solutions up as I go. But yes, I'm still working on the how to escape the witch's spell part."

"On the contrary," the reflection said, "this is more real than your world on a very fundamental level. You control everything here because this is your consciousness thrust into your soul. That says something about you, that you've layered everything in puzzles and mazes to protect yourself. Of course, it's hard to fool your own mind when you're the grand architect."

"If that's true, all I have to do is want to leave, and there should be a door then," Raifex remarked. "And if I don't want you around, then you'll disappear too."

"Well, maybe not everything in here is you," the reflection smiled mysteriously. Its face flattened out into a blank blue mask, and the circle of runes that Raifex had seen earlier appeared on it.

It spoke again, but this time its voice seemed to come from nowhere. "You'll soon find that you've been entangled in games being played for stakes beyond your imaginings. You're a piece on my board now, not my only one, or even my most important, but I think you might end up being the one that wins it all for me."

"Maybe I'm not interested in your games," Raifex snapped.

The thing, whatever it was, laughed. "When gods play, mortals rarely have a choice in the matter."

It disappeared with that statement, vanished as if it had simply never been there at all. Raifex shook his head darkly, then stepped through the mirror as it were an open door.

All three of them stood there in a row, frozen in crystal. Despite being the last to go in, Raifex was the first to emerge. He walked out of the crystal holding him as if it wasn't there, leaving the blue and black translucent rock intact behind him.

Talisira stood off to the side, examining another colored hunk of crystal, this one green streaked with purple. She didn't turn around as he approached her, just lifted a finger towards him and said, "Let's way for the other two before we start this conversation so I don't have to repeat myself."

Raifex scowled at the back of her head, but said nothing. He sat off in a corner, replaying everything he'd experienced and trying to fit the pieces together. As it seemed to be happening too often lately, there were simply too many holes, too much missing information. He was going to have to do some digging if he wanted answers.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud cracking sound. The crystal surrounding Seraphina fractured, a spiderweb of cracks running through it, then shattered into dozens of little pieces and hundreds of splinter sized shards, leaving one very dazed and confused looking gnome in the center of the rubble. She stepped gingerly out of the pile and looked around.

She spotted Raifex first, who tossed his head towards Talisira. Seraphina shot a look towards the witch, then reached for her weapon. She glanced questioningly at Raifex, and he shook his head. She raised an eyebrow and glanced over at Talisira, whose back was still turned. Raifex just shook his head again and gestured to the chunk of fiery red and orange crystal containing Larsik.

Seraphina sighed and sat down on the cave floor next to Raifex. She pulled her mandolin off her back and absently plucked at it, playing not so much music as sound that evoked emotion. Raifex felt an inexplicable feeling of sadness come over him, and he scowled down at the gnome. She didn't seem to notice, and kept on playing.

After a little while, they could hear a low hissing sound. Seraphina stopped playing and looked around in confusion. Raifex simply tilted his chin towards the crystal that still had Larsik inside it. "Him?" she asked curiously as she peered towards the sorcerer.

"Looks like it," Raifex said.

A few seconds later, wisps of steam started rising from the crystal, and less than a minute after that, its surface began to bubble and melt. The entire structure liquefied and spread out in a widening red and orange puddle at Larsik's feet. He looked around for a brief second once he was free, an expression of mixed disdain and frustration on his face. That was quickly replaced with confusion, an all too common look for the sorcerer, by Raifex's thinking.

"What happened?" Larsik asked.

"I don't know," Raifex said. "Why don't you ask her?"

He waved a hand at Talisira, who had turned to watch the crystal melting, and Larsik gave a start of surprise. He jumped backwards, slid on the puddle of melted crystal, and crashed painfully down to one knee. The thick liquid splashed around, then beaded up and rolled back into one glob.

Larsik regained his feet and slowly limped over to dry ground while Seraphina laughed behind her hand. He shot her a glare, and she gave him a lopsided grin. With a sigh, he grinned back. Raifex just scowled at them both.

Talisira arched an amused eyebrow at the sorcerer's antics. Once he'd reached relative safety, she took a breath, then said, "Let's make ourselves comfortable before I start. Through here, please, and I'll explain as much as I'm able."

She gestured, and a door appeared in the wall of the cave. It swung open of its own accord, revealing an adjoining room. They trooped into it, and found it to be some sort of study. Several chairs sat around a table, and shelves overflowing with paper lined the walls.

"Now," the witch began, "where to start..."


	17. Chapter 17

"What you experienced is caused by an artifact known as the Soul Forge," Talisira began. "It's a bit of leftover magic from almost a thousand years ago. I don't know what its original purpose was, but now, it modifies people, makes them stronger somehow. I have a theory that it actually infused their souls with magic."

"That's what happened to us?" Larsik asked.

"Almost. You three are a special case," she explained. "And how coincidental that the three of you, all very unique, happened to arrive together. Quite a coincidence indeed, if you believe in that sort of thing."

Her tone made it clear she didn't believe anything of the sort. She looked each of them over as she spoke, and when none replied, she continued, "Normally, the process takes over a week, and the mortality rate is... shall we say... high."

"You mean we could have died?" Larsik asked, alarmed.

Talisira shrugged. "For most people, it's a distinct possibility. I won't go into the hows and whys with you. As I said, you three are special."

"Special how?" Seraphina asked.

"You tell me," the witch said, one eyebrow raised. "All three of you emerged from the Soul Forge's cocoons in about a day, and all within minutes of each other."

"What did this artifact do to us?" Raifex wondered aloud.

"It's different for every survivor. Usually they find their natural talents and skills enhanced, and they start exhibiting magical properties, things like resistance to extreme heat or cold, or the ability to turn invisible without the aid of a potion or ring. You'll find out for yourself soon enough."

Her eyes lingered on Raifex for a moment as she spoke, and he got the distinct feeling that she knew far more about what had happened to him specifically than she was letting on. "What makes us so special?" he asked, probing for information.

"From what I was able to gather, you've each got more than one soul in your body. For you, the Soul Forge worked to forge links between those souls instead of enhancing your own."

"That's quite a coincidence," Larsik commented.

The witch shot him an impatient look. "Only if you believe in them. I'd be more inclined to label it destiny, myself."

"Destiny?" Raifex echoed. "So who's pulling the strings then? If some guiding higher power is running our lives, I'd like to know who it is."

_When it is time, you shall know._

He was getting sick of those words echoing through his head. He could feel invisible strings tied to him, jerking him around, forcing him to act to somebody else's interest. And the puppeteer's face was hidden in shadows. Every time he tried to get a look around, the strings pulled him back away.

"I don't have all the answers," Talisira said, but the apology rang false to his ears. She might not have them all, but she knew more than she was telling. He regarded her intently, but she didn't say anything else on the subject.

Seraphina sat off to the side, staring down at her hands in her lap. She remembered the dazzling silver light that the dragon had become, remembered it crashing into her, through her. Talisira said she had more the one soul in her body. She wondered if she was sharing space with that dragon, and if so, who he was. She didn't have many memories of her past, certainly not of the fight she'd witnessed inside the Soul Forge.

She shot a sidelong look at Larsik. He didn't have any memories either. Maybe that was a side effect of having two souls. But no, because Raifex had all his memories still. Probably, she amended silently, and it wasn't like he'd tell them if he didn't, so there wasn't really any way to be sure. Well, not on her own, at least.

"Does having two souls cause you to lose your memories?" she asked Talisira.

The witch looked surprised by the question. "I don't think so," she said. "I've never encountered anyone with two souls before, but I would assume you'd have memories from both souls, not none from either. Why? Have you lost yours."

"All but the most recent ones in the last few years," the gnome replied sadly. "I didn't even realize until recently that I couldn't remember any of my own past."

"Hmmm," Talisira murmured as she studied Seraphina. "No, I've never heard of such a thing. But then, you are unique in so many ways, it could be very difficult to determine the cause of your memory loss."

Seraphina looked over at Larsik, waiting to see if he was going to add anything to the conversation. He remained silent though, and steadfastly avoided meeting her eyes. She gave a mental shrug. If he didn't want to talk about it, she certainly wasn't going to out him.

Raifex studied his two companions as they looked at Talisira. He'd already known about Larsik's second soul, though that wasn't exactly what he'd have called it. He would have simply said that the sorcerer was possessed, and that the demon doing it had been bound inside Larsik and trapped. And he'd seen ample evidence already that Larsik's physical body had been affected by the possession.

Seraphina was an odd case all around, so there was really no telling where it all came from. She claimed to be a gnome, she had no memories beyond the last few years, and Talisira was claiming dual souls for her as well. Raifex hadn't even begun to unravel the mysteries in his half-sized traveling companion.

"Why us?" Larsik asked simply, shifting the conversation away from memories.

"_Why us?" Raifex asked._

"_You're who he chose. You each have a role to play."_

"_First off, who's 'he?' Secondly, why should I do what he says?"_

_Talisira laughed. "He is unimaginable. We don't have words to describe such a being. The closest you could come is to call him a god. And honestly, it's not like you or I have a choice. He commands, we obey."_

_Raifex shifted uncomfortably. He'd worked for a lot of people, most human, some not. But that was different. They paid him a price, he procured whatever information or object they wanted, and it was a done deal. This sounded like he was going to be something's whipping boy, and he didn't like the thought of it at all._

"_What if I don't obey?"_

"_What makes you think you've got a choice?" she shot back._

"_You tell me I've got to collect this thing from these frost giants. Maybe I just decide I've had enough, leave, and never do that."_

"_Free will is a nebulous concept. If you believe you're doing it because it's what you want to do, but in reality you're being manipulated into believing that, is it still free will? More importantly, in the end, does it matter?"_

_Raifex scowled at Talisira. "So no matter what I decide, I'm this god's finger puppet?"_

"_That about sums it up, I'd say," the witch said, relaxing back into her chair. "It's not such a terrible life. He is generous to those who serve him faithfully, and few ever get the opportunity to hear his name."_

"_And what's that?"_

"_His name? You'll find out, in time."_

Raifex looked from Larsik to Talisira. A piece of memory had just floated up to the surface, a chunk of conversation he'd never had, or one that he'd had and forgotten about. Memories and their manipulation seemed to be a common theme, and he wasn't at all happy about it. He wondered what else they'd talked about that he didn't remember.

"Why are you three so special? I don't know. You'll have to figure that out on your own. Why are you here? You came on your own, so you'd know your reasons better than I would," Talisira said.

That was a very different answer than the one he remembered from when he'd asked the exact same question. He kept his face blank, not wanting to reveal anything. There was a very dangerous game going on under the surface, and the less he gave away, the safer he'd be. His information was too incomplete to make any bold moves yet.

Control over that information seemed to be the mysterious god's signature move. Whoever he was, he was doling it out in a carefully controlled manner, giving just a little bit, just enough to make Raifex do what he wanted. Raifex was being played, and he wasn't sure he could slip out of it. He intended to try though. No one, not even a god, got to do that to him.

Talisira rose to her feet, a movement that brought everyone's attention out of their own private thoughts and squarely back to her. "Now, I have some information for you of a less philosophical and more pertinent manner."

She murmured a brief spell and waved a hand, her fingers flickering in a circular motion. An incredibly detailed three dimensional map appeared in the air. She stood up and walked through it, not breaking its surface in the slightest. She reached out a hand to point at a small cave in the mountain side. "Here we are," she said.

She gestured north towards the mountains that were buried in snow. "Look closely, and you'll see a fortress locked in ice. This is Rael-Gath, home of the frost giants. Their leader, Boghnar, is a massive specimen, smart and cunning. Make no mistakes, frost giants are nothing like their stupid kin."

Raifex leaned over the map, studying it. "Here is the Irinom Stronghold," he said aloud. He began tracing the mountain paths with his finger. "If the passes aren't snowed in, we can approach from here."

Talisira looked at the path he'd outlined and shook her head. "You'll pass by the caves of the white dragon Haldjir if you go that way. Better to take the long way around rather than risk a run in with him."

They all studied the map in silence for a few minutes. "It looks extremely cold. How long will that take to travel that far, do you think?" Larsik asked.

"Depends on how fast we walk," Raifex replied. "I don't spend a lot of time crawling over mountains, but if the trails are anything like the ones here, maybe a week for the long way."

"Plus however long we're with the dwarves. Darunia will want to know what we found out," Seraphina pointed out.

"If you're done then?" Talisira asked. When all three of them nodded, she waved her hand and dismissed the spell. The map faded away, and she gestured towards the exit. "I'll see you out. Good luck to you all."

They emerged from the cave into the cold mountain air a minute later, all three of them blinking against the light. Without a word to each other, they set off down the trails, lost in their own heads as they marched.


End file.
